riMil 



S 



m 




wmm.- 



M^mm^rn 



^g J H T i r i ? TJ> | > 



14 i" 



^^^ 





BXWGPUDDEFGOT 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Shelf ^ <i^-^ 

UNITED STATES Of AMERICA. 




//. ^ • /5L^-#^v^ 



THE MINUTE MAN 



ON THE 



FRONTIER 




THE REV. W. G. PUDDEFOOT, A.M 

FIELD SECRETARY OF THE HOME MISSIONARY SOCIETY 




0^ 



NEW YORK: 46 East 14TH Street 

THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY 

BOSTON : 100 Purchase Street 



Copyright, 1895, 
By Thomas Y. Crowell & Co. 



f^ 



TYPOGRAPHY BY C. J. PETERS & SON, 
BOSTON. 



PREFACE, 



In a very able review of Maspero's 
" Dawn of Civilization," the writer says 
" that for hundreds of years it was be- 
lieved that history had two eyes ; but 
now we know she has at least three, 
and that archaeology is the third." 

This may account for the saying that 
'' history is a He agreed to ; " for it needs 
to be argus-eyed to give us any adequate 
idea of the truth ; and while the writer 
of the following sketches does not aspire 
to the rank of a historian, he has been 
induced to print them for two or three 
reasons. First, because urged to by 
friends ; and secondly, because of the 
unique condition of American frontier 
ill 



IV PREFACE. 

life that is so rapidly passing away for- 
ever. 

One may read Macaulay, Froude, 
Knight, and, in fact, a half-dozen his- 
tories of England, and then sit down to 
the gossipy sketches of Sidney culled 
from Pepys's, Evelyn's, and other diaries, 
and eet a truer view of EnofHsh life 
than in all the ^reat histories combined. 
It would be impossible to give even the 
slightest sketch of a country so large as 
ours for a single decade in many vol- 
umes ; although, in one sense, we are 
more homogeneous than many suppose. 

There was a greater difference in two 
counties in England before the advent 
of the railways than between two of our 
Northern States to-day. To-day a man 
may travel from Boston to San Fran- 
cisco, and he will find the same head- 
lines In his morning papers, and for three 
thousand miles will find the scenery 



PREFACE. 



desecrated by the wretched quack medi- 
cine advertisements that produce " that 
tired feehng " which they profess to cure. 
If he goes into one county in the 
mother country, he will find the people 
singeing the bristles of their swine, and 
counting by the score, in another by 
the stone, etc., and customs kept up 
that had grown settled before travel be- 
came general. But with us it is differ- 
ent. We had no time to become crys- 
tallized before the iron horse, the great 
cosmopolitan of the age, rapidly levelled 
all distinctions ; and it is only by get- 
ting away from the railway, and into 
settlements that still retain all the primi- 
tiveness of an earlier day, that we find 
the conditions of which much of this 
book treats. 



CONTENTS. 



Preface 

I. The Frontier in Relation to the World 
II. Early Reminiscences 

III. The Minute-Man on the Frontier 

IV. The Immigrant on the Frontier 
V. The Oddities of the Frontier .- 

VI. Lights and Shadows 

VII. Saturday Afternoon in the South 
VIII. All Sorts and Conditions of Men 
IX. The South in Springtime . 
X. The North-west .... 
XL A Brand New Woods Village 
XII. Out-of-the-Way Places . . 

XIII. Cockle, Chess, and Wheat . 

XIV. Chips from other Logs . . 
XV. A Trip in Northern Michigan 

XVI. Black Clouds with Silver Linings 

XVII. Sad Experiences 

XVIII. A Sunday on Sugar Island . . . 
vii 



'AGE 

iii 

I 

II 

22 
48 
61 

68 

77 

82 

91 
102 
107 
123 

134 

142 

151 
163 
171 
180 



VIU CONTENTS, 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XIX. The Needs of the Minute-Man ... 189 

XX. The Minute-Man in the Miner's Camp. 197 

XXI. The Sabbath on the Frontier .... 211 

XXII. The Frontier of the vSouth-west . . 220 

XXIII. Dark Places of the Interior .... 227 

XXIV. The Dangerous Native Classes , . . 235 
XXV. Christian Work in the Lumber-Town . 244 

XXVI. Two Kinds of Frontier 255 

XXVII. Breaking New Ground 262 

XXVIII. Sowing the Seed 270 

XXIX. " Harvest Home " 277 

XXX. Injeanny vs. Heaven 285 

XXXI. The Latest Frontier — Oklahoma . . 293 

XXXII. The Pioneer Wedding 318 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Portrait of the Author Frontispiece 

Indian Camp, Grand Traverse Bay . . , Page i6 

View near Petoskey, Mich 20 

Typical Log House 46 

Typical Sod House . 61 

A Southern Saw-Mill 91 

Winter Scene in Northern Michigan 127 

A Minute Man's Parsonage 190 

Oldest House in the United States, Santa F^, 

New Mexico 220 

Breaking New Ground 262 

Looking for a Town Lot 294 

Forming in Line to vote for Mayor 296 

Indians at Pawnee, Oklahoma Ter 301 

After a Storm, Guthrie, Oklahoma Ter. . . . 306 

First Church and Parsonage, Alva, Oklahoma Ter. 307 

At a Church Dedication 310 



THE MINUTE-MAN 



ON 



THE FRONTIER. 



I. 

THE FRONTIER IN RELATION TO THE WORLD. 

The opening up of a new frontier is 
world-wide in its operations. Minnesota 
entered the Union as a State in 1858. 
The putting to practical use the Falls of 
St. Anthony was felt all over Europe. 
Thousands of little country mills, nestling 
amid the trees, and adding to the beauty 
of the English pastoral scenery, to-day 
stand idle, the great wheels covered with 
green moss; and Tennyson's " Miller" be- 
comes a reminiscence. Iowa became a 
State in 1846, and now leads the world in 
the production of corn ; and although it 



2 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

is a thousand miles from the seaboard, 
yet through its immense production, and 
with the cheapening of transportation, we 
find over seventy thousand ItaHans em- 
migrating to this country, as, in spite of 
low wages, they cannot compete on the 
plains of Lombardy. (See Wells's '' Eco- 
nomic Changes.") — We find that the man 
at the front can ship from Chicago to 
Liverpool the product of five acres of 
grain for less money than the cost of 
manuring one acre of land in England. 
{Ibid.) 

Every time a new frontier in America 
is opened, it means both prosperity and 
disaster. So large are the opportunities, 
so rich the results, that at first all calcula- 
tions are upset. Natural gas in the Middle 
States changes the price of coal in Europe. 
The findine of a tin-mine is felt in Corn- 
wall and Wales the next day. The open- 
ing of the iron-mines in Michigan makes 
Cornish towns spring up in the upper 
peninsula, while the finding of ore in deso- 
late places has caused communities to 



THE FRONTIER AXD THE WORLD. 3 

spring up with all the conditions of a cos- 
mopolitan civilization, and we have to-day 
men living twenty-five miles from trees 
or grass. But such is the energy of the 
frontier type, that grass-plats have been 
carried and planted on the solid rocks, as 
in Duluth, where hundreds of thousands 
of dollars are expended in the grading of 
streets, and the opening of the sewers, 
all havine to be blasted to do the work. 
North Dakota was a wilderness of 150,- 
000 square miles, and had not produced 
a sinele bushel of wheat for sale, in 1881. 
In 1886 it produced nearly 35,000,000 
bushels ; in 1887, 62,553,000. (See Wells's 
" Recent Economic Changes.") The open- 
ing up of these immense territories starts 
railways from California to Siberia; for, 
with the Great West competing, Russia is 
stirred to orreater effort. India, with her 
o-reat commerce with Great Britain, needs 
a shorter route; and the Suez canal is 
made. Australia must compete with the 
Western plains ; and great steamers, filled 
with refrigerators, are constructed for 



4 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

carrying fresh beef. The South American 
repubhcs respond in return. 

The hardy pioneer, ever on the move, 
explores well nigh impracticable routes in 
search of precious metals. The inventive 
mechanic must respond with an engine 
that can climb anywhere ; and in almost 
inaccessible mountain eyries the eagle is 
disturbed by the shriek of the locomotive, 
and the bighorn must take refuge with the 
bison in the National Park. The news of 
new mines flies around the world, fortunes 
are made and lost in a day, and the 
destinies of nations determined. A great 
crop starts railways, steamships. Miners, 
smelting-works, iron and steel, respond. 
Letters fly across the Atlantic, and return- 
ine steamers are filled with easier men and 
women, who answer the letters in person. 
Down from the far north, Sweden and 
Norway have responded with over a million 
of their children. Great Britain has sent 
nearly six millions. Germany follows with 
4,417,950; Italy, 392,000; France, 315, 
130; Austria, 304,976; Denmark, 114, 



THE FRONTIER AND THE WORLD. 5 

858; Hungary, 141,601 ; Switzerland, 167,- 
203 ; Russia and Poland, 326,994; Nether- 
lands, 99,516; and so on: in all, a total 
for Europe in fifty years of over 13,000,- 
000, the great majority of whom have 
been started from their homes by the 
opening up of new^ frontiers. 

It has been stated on good authority, 
that sixty per cent of the Germans that 
come are between the ages of fifteen and 
forty, wdiile all Germany has only thirty 
per cent of that age. ' 

On the authority of Dr. Farr, quoted 
by R. Mayo Smith in his '' Emigration 
and Immigration," he calculates the money 
value of the immigrants from the British 
Isles from 1837 to 1876 reached the enor- 
mous sum of 1,400,000 pounds sterling, 
or 7,000,000,000 of dollars, an average of 
175,000,000 dollars a year; wdiile the 
amount sent back from British North 
America and the United States since 
1848 was but ;/^32,294,596. And what 
has been produced by the immigrant and 
exported amounts to many hundred mil- 



6 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

lions of dollars. It has been computed 
that the country has been pushed for- 
ward a quarter of a century by this vast 
mass of immigrants, nearly all of whom 
labor for a living. 

The frontiers of America will yet change 
the world. When in the not distant 
future hundreds of millions cover the 
p^reat continent, dotted with schools and 
churches, and an intelligent population 
speaking one language, and with other 
millions in Africa-, Australia, and the isl- 
ands of the sea, using the same language, 
the time will come when they will arbi- 
trate for the world, and war shall be no 
more. Lonor before the Atlantic cable 
was stretched across the ocean, millions 
of heartstrings were vibrating from this 
land to all parts of Europe ; and to-day 
the letters fly homeward from the frontier 
immigrants in their sod houses, bearing 
good cheer in words and money. 

The freedom of the frontier is con- 
tagious, and the poor European strives 
harder than ever to reach his kin across 



THE FRONTIER AND THE WORLD. / 

the sea. And when we consider that only 
300,000 square miles out of 1,500,000 
miles of arable land is under cultiva- 
tion, and that already the farmers of Eng- 
land and most parts of Europe are being 
pushed to the wall, we begin to realize 
that the growth of the frontiers of the 
United States not only influences our 
own land, but changes materially the 
course of events in the whole world. The 
above figures are by Mr. Edward Atkin- 
son, as quoted in substance from " Recent 
Economic Changes." 

To show the orrowth of one State dur- 
ing the past fifty years, let us take Mich- 
igan. In 1840 Michigan had a population 
of 212,267 ; in 1890, 2,093,889. In 1840 
there were three small railroads, with a 
total mileage of 59 miles. In 1890 there 
were over 7,000 miles. "In 1840 [I quote 
from Hon. B. W. Cutcheon, in '' Fifty 
Years' Growth in Michigan " ] mining 
had not begun. In 1890 over 7,000,000 
tons of iron were shipped from her mines ; 
while the output of copper had reached 



8 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

over a 100,000,000 lbs., and valued at 
$15,845,427.28. The salt industry, a late 
one, rose from 4,000 bbls. in i860 to 
3,838,937 bbls. in 1890; while the value 
of her lumber products for 1890 was over 
$55,000,000. In 1840 there were neither 
graded nor high schools, normal schools 
nor colleges. In 1890, 654,502 children 
were of school age, with an enrolment of 
427,032, with 33,975 additional attending 
private schools. These children were 
taught by 15,990 teachers, who received 
in salaries $3,326,287." 

In 1840 Michigan had 30,144 horses 
and mules, 185,190 neat cattle, 99,618 
sheep. In 1890 there were 579,896 
horses, 3,779 mules, of milch cows 459,- 
475, oxen and other cattle 508,938, of 
sheep 2,353,779, of swine 893,037. The 
total value came to $74,892,618. Over 
1,700 men are engaged in the fisheries, 
with nearly a million dollars invested, 
with a total yield of all fish of 34,490,184 
lbs., valued at over a million and a half 
of dollars. The value of her apples and 



THE FRONTIER AND THE WORLD. 9 

peaches in 1890 was $944,332 ; of cherries, 
pears, and plums, $65,217; of straw- 
berries, $166,033 i of other berries, $267,- 
398; and of grapes, $122,394. The 
wheat crop for 1891 was valued at $27,- 
486,910; the oats at $9,689,441 ; besides 
811,977 bushels of buckwheat, and 2,522,- 
376 bushels of barley. The capital in- 
vested in lumber alone was $111,302,797. 
"While her great University, which saw 
its first student in 1841, and which had 
but three teachers, one of them acting as 
president, has grown to be one of the 
largest in the nation, with eighty pro- 
fessors and instructors and 2,700 students 
registered on her rolls, conferring 623 
degrees upon examination." And all this 
but the partial record of fifty years in 
one State. 

Since Michigan was entered as a State 
fourteen new States have been formed 
(not counting Texas) and three Territories, 
with an aggregate of over 17,000,000 
square miles of land, and a population of 
nearly 15,000,000, nearly all of which 



lO MINUTE-MAN ON THE ER ON TIER. 

fifty years ago was wilderness, the home 
of the Indian and the wild beasts. With 
such stupendous changes in so short a 
time, we see that the American fron 
tiers have a direct and powerful influence 
in changing the histories and destinies 
of the nations of the whole world. 



EARL Y REMINISCENCES. 1 1 



EARLY REMINISCENCES. 

It was in the spring of 1859 that I 
first saw the frontier. Our way was 
over the New York Central, very Httle 
of which had two tracks. I have a very 
vivid recollection of the worm fences, 
the log houses, and the great forests 
that we passed on our way to Upper 
Canada. I remember the hunters com- 
ing towards the train with their mocca- 
sons on and the bucks slung over their 
shoulders. I have since that time seen 
many men who were the first to cut a 
tree in this county or that town. There 
were about forty thousand miles of rail- 
way in the whole land at that date, 
against nearly two hundred thousand miles 
to-day. Cities which are now the capi- 
tals of States were the feeding-ground 
of buffalo ; wolves and black bears had 



12 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

their dens where to-day we can see a 
greater miracle in stone than Cheops ; 
i.e., a stone State House built inside the 
appropriation ! Then six miles of travel 
on the new roads smashed more china 
than three thousand miles by sea and 
rail. The little towns were but open- 
ings in a forest that extended for hun- 
dreds of miles. The best house in the 
village without a cellar ; roots were kept 
in pits. Houses could be rented for two 
dollars per month, where to-day they 
are twelve dollars. Pork was two dol- 
lars a hundred ; beef by the quarter, two 
and one-half cents a pound ; potatoes, 
fifteen cents a bushel. Men received 
seventy-five cents a day for working on 
the railroad. Cord-wood was two dollars 
a cord ; and you could get it cut, split, 
and piled for fifty cents a cord. Men 
wore stogy boots, generally with one 
leg of the trousers outside and one in. 
Blue denham was the prevailing suit for 
workinemen. The shoemaker cut his 
shoes, and they were sent out to be 



EARLY REMINISCENCES. 1 3 

bound by women. The women wore 
spring-heeled shoes, print dresses, and 
huge sunbonnets ; and in the summer- 
time the settlers went barefooted. The 
roads were simply indescribable. When 
a tree fell, it was cut off within an inch 
of the ruts ; the wagon would sink to 
the hubs, and need prying out with poles ; 
harnesses were never cleaned, and boot- 
blacking had no sale. But the school- 
house was in every township. In the 
older settlements could be seen the log 
hut in which the young couple started 
housekeeping, then a log house of more 
pretentious size ; the frame-house which 
followed, and a fine brick house where 
the family now lived, showing the rapid 
progress made. 

This was in western Canada. Toronto 
was separated from Yorkville, but was a 
busy, substantial city. I remember the 
stores beine closed when Lincoln was 
buried, and black bunting hung along 
the principal streets. I remember, too, 
the men who were loudest in their curses 



14 MINUTE-MAN GN THE FRONTIER. 

at the government and against Lincoln, 
how the tears came to their eyes, and 
how that event brought them to their 
senses. Most of them were shoemakers 
from New England. 

In 1873 I crossed into Michigan with 
my family. Even as late as that the 
greater part of northern Michigan, and 
especially the upper peninsula, was teri'a 
incognita to most of the people of that 
State. The railroads stopped at a long 
distance this side the Straits of Mackinaw. 
The lumbermen had but skimmed the 
best of the trees ; and, with the exception 
of a few isolated settlements on the lakes 
and up the larger rivers, it was an un- 
broken wilderness, abounding in fish, deer, 
bears, wolves, and wild-cats ; in fact, a 
hunter's paradise, as it is even to this 
day. 

But with the extension of the railways 
to the Straits of Mackinaw, and the open- 
ing of new lines to the north into the 
iron mines of Menominee to the Gogebic 
range, the great copper mines of the Ke- 



EARLY REMINISCENCES. I 5 

weenaw peninsula, and the ever-increasing 
traffic of the lakes, the changes were sim- 
ply marvellous. Some things I shall say 
will seem paradoxical, but they are never- 
theless true to life. 

The greater parts of southern Michigan 
and southern Wisconsin were settled by 
people from New York State ; and long be- 
fore the northern parts of Michigan and 
Wisconsin were opened up, new States had 
risen in the West, and the tide of immiorra- 
tion swept past towards new frontiers, leav- 
ing vast frontiers behind them. Sometimes 
a few stray men with money at their com- 
mand would pierce the country and form a 
settlement, as in the case of Traverse City. 
Here for years the mail was brought by 
the Indians on dog-sledges in the winter. 
It took eight days to reach Grand Rapids 
on snow-shoes. It is four hundred miles 
by water to Chicago. Sometimes the 
winters were so long that the provisions 
had to be dealt out very sparingly ; but 
all the time the little colony was growing, 
and when at last the railroads reached it, 



1 6 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

the traveller, after riding for miles through 
virgin forests, would come upon a little 
city of four thousand people, with good 
churches, fine schools, and one store that 
cost one hundred thousand dollars to build. 
If it chanced to be summer-time he 
would see the tepees of the Indians along 
the bay, and two blocks back civilized 
homes with all the conveniences and lux- 
uries of modern life. Here a huge canoe 
made of a single lo^-, and there a mam- 
moth steamer with all the eleo-ances of 
an ocean-liner. Should he go on board 
of one of the steamers coasting around 
the lakes with supplies, he would pass 
great bays with lovely islands, and steam 
within a stone's throw of a comparatively 
rare bird, the great northern diver, and 
suddenly find himself near a wharf with 
a village in sio^ht — a o;-reat saw-mill cut- 
ting its hundreds of thousands of feet of 
lumber a day ; and near by, Indian graves 
with the food still fresh inside, and a tame 
deer with a collar and bell around its 
neck trotting around the streets. 



EARLY REMINISCENCES. 1 7 

He can sit and fish for trout on his 
doorstep that borders the Httle stream, 
or he can get on the company's locomo- 
tive and run twenty miles back into the 
woods and see the coveys of partridges 
risine in clouds, and here and there a 
timid doe and her fawn, whose curiosity 
is ereater than their fears, until the 
whistle blows, and they are off like a shot 
into the deep forest, near where the black 
bear is munching raspberries in a ten- 
thousand-acre patch, while millions of 
bushels of whortleberries will waste for 
lack of pickers. He can sit on a point of 
an inland lake and catch minnow^s on one 
side, and pull up black bass on the other ; 
and if a "tenderfoot" he will bring home 
as much as he can carry, expecting to be 
praised for his skill. He is mortified at 
the request to please bury them. He 
will ride over ground that less than fifteen 
years ago could be bought for a song 
and to-day produces millions, and is dotted 
with towns and huge furnaces glowing 
night and day. 



15 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

If in the older settled parts, he will 
ride through cornfields whose tassels are 
up to the car windows, where the origi- 
nal settler paddled his skiff and caught 
pickerel and the ague at the same time, 
and who is still alive to tell the story. 
He can talk with a man who knew every 
white man by name when he first went 
there, and remembers the Indian peep- 
ing in through his log-cabin window, 
but whose grandchildren have graduated 
from a university with twenty-seven hun- 
dred students, where he helped build the 
log schoolhouse ; who remembers when 
he had to send miles for salt, and yet was 
livinor over a bed of it biof enoueh to 
salt the world down. 

He had nothing but York State pump- 
kins and wild cranberries for his Thanks- 
giving dinner, with salt pork for turkey ; 
and he lives to-day in one of the great 
fruit belts of the world, and ships his 
turkeys by the ton to the East ; and to- 
day in the North the same experience is 
going on. Places where the mention of 



EARLY REAIIAUSCENCES. 1 9 

an apple makes the teeth water, and where 
you can still see them come wrapped in 
tissue paper like orangres, and yet, para- 
doxical as it may seem, you can enter a 
lumber-camp and find the men regaled on 
roast chicken and eating cucumbers be- 
fore the seed is sown in that part of the 
country. 

Here are farms worth over eighty 
thousand dollars, which but a few years 
ago were entered by the homesteader 
who had to live on potatoes and salt, 
and cut wild hay in summer, and draw 
it to town on a cedar jumper, in order to 
get flour for his hungry children. Here 
on an island are men living who used to 
leave their farming to see the one steamer 
unload and load, or watch a schooner 
drawn up over the Rapids, and who now 
see sweeping by their farms a procession 
of craft whose tonnage is greater than 
all the ocean ports of the country. 

I have sat on the deck of a litde 
steamer and drawn pictures for the In- 
dians, who took them and marched off 



20 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

with the smile of a schoolboy getting a 
prize chromo, and in less than five years 
from that time I have at the same place 
sat down in a hotel lighted with elec- 
tricity, and a menu equal to any in the 
country, with a bronze portrait of Gen- 
eral Grant embossed on the top. Within 
ten years I have preached, with an In- 
dian chief for an interpreter, in a log 
house in which a half-brother of Riel of 
North-Western fame was a hearer, where 
to-day there are self-supporting churches 
and flourishing schools. 

Less than sixteen years ago I stopped 
at the end of the Michigan Central Rail- 
way, northern division ; every lot was filled 
with stumps. A school was being rapidly 
built, while the church had a lot only. 
The next time I visited the town it had 
fine churches and schools. The hotel had 
a beautiful conservatory filled with choice 
flowers. I could take my train, pass on 
over the Straits of Mackinaw, on by rail 
again, and clear to the Pacific, with 
sleeper and dining-car attached. 



EARLY REMINISCENCES. 21 

But once leave your railway, and soon 
you can get to settlements twenty years 
old which saw the first buggy last year 
come into the clearings. Here are deep 
forests where the preacher on his way 
home from church meets the panther and 
the wild-cat, and where as yet he must 
ford the rivers and build his church, the 
first in nine thousand square miles. 



22 MINUTE-MAN ON THE ER ON TIER. 



III. 

THE MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

The minute-men at the front are the 
nation's cheapest poHcemen ; and strange 
as it may seem, these men stand in vital 
relations to all the ereat cities of the 
country from which they are so far re- 
moved. It is a well-known fact that every 
city owes its life and increase to the fresh 
infusion of country blood, and it depends 
largely on the purity of that blood as to 
what the moral condition of the city shall 
be. Therefore it is of the utmost impor- 
tance that Zion's watchmen shall lift up 
their voices day and night, until not only 
the wilderness shall be glad because of 
them, but that the city's walls may be 
named Salvation and her gates Praise. 

Let us make the rounds amono- our 
minute-men to see how they live and what 
they do. Our road leads along the Grand 



MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 23 

Rapids and Indiana Railway. All day long 
we have been flitting past new towns, and 
toward night we plunge into* the dense 
forests with only here and there an open- 
ing. The fresh perfume of the balsam 
invades the cars, the clear trout-streams 
pass and repass under the track, a herd 
of deer scurry yonder, and once we see 
a huge black bear swaying between two 
giant hemlocks. 

At eleven p.m. we leave the train. There 
is a drizzlinor rain throueh which w^e see 
a half-dozen twinklinor liorhts. As the train 
turns a curve we lose sio-ht of its red liehts, 
and feel we have lost our best, friend. A 
little boy, the sole human being in sight, 
is carrying a diminutive mail-bag. The 
sidewalk is only about thirty-six feet long. 
Then among the stumps w^e wind our 
slippery w^ay, and at last reach the only 
frame house for miles. To the north and 
east we see a wilderness, with here and 
there a hardy settler's hut, sometimes a 
wagon with a cover and the stump of 
a stove-pipe sticking through the top. 



24 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

After climbing the stairs, which are 
destitute of a bakistrade, we enter our 
room. It is carpeted with a horse-blanket. 
Starting out with a lumber waoron next 
morning, with axes and whip-saw, we hew 
our way through the forest to another line 
of railway, and returning, are asked by 
the people in the settlement, " Will it 
ever be settled?" "Could a man raise 
apples?" ''Snow too deep?" "Mice 
girdle all the trees, eh ? " etc. 

Five years later, on a sleeping-car, we 
open our eyes in the morning, and what 
a change ! The little solitary stations that 
we passed before are surrounded with 
houses. White puffs of steam come snap- 
ping out from factories. A weekly paper, 
a New York and Boston store, and the 
five- and ten-cent counter store are among 
the developments. Our train sweeps on- 
ward, miles beyond our first stop ; and in- 
stead of the lonely lodging-house, palatial 
hotels invite us, bands of music are play- 
ing, the bay is a scene of magic, here a 
little naphtha launch, and there a steam 



MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 2$ 

yacht, and then a mighty steamer that 
makes the dock cringe its whole length 
as she slowly ties up to it. 

Night comes on, but the woods are as 
light as day with electric lights. Rustic 
houses of artistic design are on every 
hand. Here, where it was thought apples 
could not be raised because of mice and 
deep snow, is a great Western Chautauqua. 

Eighty thousand people are pushing 
forward into the northern counties of this 
great State. Roads, bridges, schoolhouses, 
— all are building. Most of the settlers 
are poor, sometimes having to leave part 
of their furniture to pay freight. They are 
from all quarters of our own and other 
lands. Here spring up great mill towns, 
mining towns, and county seats; and here, 
too, our minute-man comes. What can he 
do ? Nearly all the people are here to 
make money. He has neither church, par- 
sonage, nor a membership to start with. 
Here he finds towns with twenty saloons 
in a block, opera house and electric plants, 
dog-fights, men-fights, no Sabbath but 



26 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

an extra day for amusements and de- 
bauchery. 

The minute-man is ready for any emer- 
gency ; he takes chances that would appall 
a town minister. He finds a town without 
a single house that is a home ; he has 
missed his train at a funeral. It is too 
cold to sleep in the woods, and so he 
walks the streets. 

A saloon-keeper sees him. '' Hello, 
Elder ! Did ye miss yer train ? Kind 
o' tough, eh?" with a laugh. "Well, 
ye ken sleep in the saloon if ye ken 
stand it." And so down on the floor 
he goes, comforting himself with the 
text, " Though I make my bed in hell, 
behold, thou art there." 

Another minute-man in another part 
of the country finds a town given up 
to wickedness. He gets his frugal lunch 
in a saloon, the only place for him. 

''Are you a preacher?" 

'' Yes." 

''Thought so. You want to preach?" 

" I don't know where I can get a hall." 



MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 2 J 

" Oh, stranger, I'll give ye my dance- 
hall ; jest the thing, and I tell ye we 
need preaching here bad." 

" Good ; I will preach." 

The saloon man stretches a large 
piece of cotton across his bar, and 
writes, — 

" Divine service in this place from 
ten A. M. to twelve to-morrow. No 
drinks served during service." 

It is a strange crowd : there are uni- 
versity men, and men who never saw 
a school. With some little trembling 
the minute-man begins, and as he speaks 
he feels -more freedom and courage. 
At the conclusion the host seizes his 
big hat, and with a revolver commences 
to take up a collection, remarking that 
they had had some pretty straight slug- 
ging. On the back seats are a number 
of what are called five-cent-ante men ; 
and as they drop in small coin, he 
says, — 

'' Come, boys, ye have got to straddle 
that." 



28 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

He brings the hat to the parson, and 
empties a large collection on the table. 

" But what can I do with these 
colored things ? " 

" Why, pard, them's chips ; every one 
redeemable at the bar In gold." 

Sometimes the minute-man has a 
harder time. A scholarly man who now 
holds a high position In New England 
was a short time since In a mountain 
town where he preached In the morning 
to a few people In an empty saloon, 
and announced that there would be ser- 
vice In the same place In the evening. 
But he reckoned without his host. By 
evenlnof It was a saloon ag^ain In full 
blast. Nothing daunted, he began outside. 

The men lighted a tar-barrel, and be- 
gan to raffle off a mule. Just then a 
noted bravo of the camps came down ; 
and quick as a flash his shooting-irons 
were out, and with a voice like a lion 
he said, — 

'' Boys, I drop the first one that inter- 
feres with this service." 



MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 29 

Thus under guard from unexpected 
quarters, the preacher spoke to a number 
of men who had been former church- 
members in the far East. 

Often these minute-men must build 
their own houses, and Hve in such a 
rough society that wife and children 
must stay behind for some years. One 
minute-man built a little hut the roof 
of which was shingled with oyster-cans. 
His room was so small that he could 
pour out his coffee at the table, and 
without getting up turn his flapjacks 
on the stove. A travelling missionary 
visiting him, asked him where he slept. 
He opened a little trap-door in the ceil- 
ing ; and as the good woman peered 
in she said, — 

"Why, you can't stand up in that 
place ! " 

" Bless your soul, madam," he ex- 
claimed, '' a home missionary doesn't sleep 
standing up." 

Strapping a bundle of books on his 
shoulders, this minute-man starts out 



30 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

on a mule-trail. If he meets the train, 
he must step off and climb back. He 
reaches the distant camp, and finds the 
boys by the dozen gambling in an im- 
mense saloon. He steps up to the bar 
and requests the liberty of singing a 
few hymns. The man answers surlily, — 

" Ye ken if ye like, but the boys 
won't stand it." 

The next minute a rich baritone be- 
gins, " What a friend we have in Jesus," 
and twenty heads are lifted. He then 
says, — 

" Boys, take a hand ; here are some 
books." And in less than ten minutes 
he has a male choir of many voices. 
One says, " Pard, sing number so and 
so ; " and another, ^' Sing number so and 
so." By this time the saloon-keeper is 
growling ; but it is of no use ; the 
minister has the boys, and starts his 
work. 

In some camps a very different recep- 
tion awaits him, as, for instance, the 
following : At his appearance a wild- 



MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 3 1 

looking Buffalo- Bill type of man greeted 
him with an oath and a pistol levelled 
at him. 

" Don't yer know thar's no luck in 
camp with a preacher? We are going 
to kill ye." 

'' Don't you know," said the 'minute- 
man, " a minister can draw a bead as 
quick as any man ? " The boys gave 
a loud laugh, for they love grit, and the 
rough slunk away. But a harder trial 
followed. 

" Glad to see ye, pard ; but ye'll have 
to set 'em up 'fore ye commence — rule 
of the camp, ye know." But before our 
man could frame an answer, the hard- 
est drinker in the crowd said, — 

" Boys, he Is the fust minister as has 
had the sand to come up here, and I'll 
stand treat for him." 

It is a great pleasure to add that the 
man who did this 'is to-day a Christian. 

One man is found on our grand 
round, livine with a wife and a laro-e 
family in a church. The church build- 



32 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

ing had been too cold to worship In, 
and so they gave It to him for a par- 
sonage. The man had his study In the 
belfry, and had to tack a carpet up to 
keep his papers from blowing Into the 
lake. This man's life was In constant 
jeopardy, and he always carried two 
large revolvers. He had been the cause 
of breaking up the stockade dens of the 
town, and ruffians were hired to kill 
him. He seemed to wear a charmed 
life — but then, he was over six feet 
high, and weighed more than two hun- 
dred pounds. Some of the facts that 
this man could narrate are unreport- 
able. 

The lives lost on our frontiers to-day 
through sin in all Its forms are legion, 
and no man realizes as well as the 
home missionary what It costs to build 
a new country ; on the other hand, no 
man has such an opportunity to see the 
ofrowth of the kinedom. 

There died in Belolt, recently, the Rev. 
Jeremiah Porter, a man who had been a 



MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 33 

home missionary. His field was at Fort 
Brady before Chicago had its name. His 
church was largely composed of soldiers ; 
and when the men were ordered to Fort 
Dearborn, he went with them, and or- 
cranized what is now known as the First 
Presbyterian Church of Chicago. This 
minute-man lived to see Chicago one 
million two hundred thousand strono^. 

We should have lost the whole Pacific 
slope but for our minute-man, the glorious 
and heroic Whitman, who not only carried 
his wagon over the Rockies, but came 
back through stern winter and past hos- 
tile savages, and by hard reasoning with 
Webster and others secured that vast pos- 
session for us. As a nation we owe a debt 
we can never repay to the soldiers of the 
cross at the front, who have endured (and 
endure to-day) hardships of every kind. 
They are cut off from the society which 
they love ; often they live in dugouts, 
sometimes in rooms over a saloon ; going 
weeks without fresh meat, sometimes suf- 
fering from hunger, and for a long time 



34 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

without a cent in the house. Yet who 
ever heard them complain ? Their great 
grief is that fields lie near to them white 
for the harvest, while, with hands already 
full, they can only pray the Lord of the 
harvest to send forth more laborers. 

Often there is but one man preaching 
in a county which is larger than Massa- 
chusetts. He is cut off from libraries, 
ministers' meetino-s, and to a larofe extent 
from the sympathies of more fortunate 
brethren, and is often unable to send his 
children to colleo^e. These men still stand 
their ground until they die, ofttimes un- 
known, but leaving foundations for others 
to build on. 

One place visited by a general mission- 
ary was so full of reckless men that the 
station-agent always carried a revolver 
from his house to the railway station. A 
vile variety show, carried on by abandoned 
women, was kept open day and night. 
Sunday was the noisiest day of all. Yet 
in this place a church was formed ; and 
many men and women, having found a 



MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 35 

leader, were ready to take a stand for the 
riorht. 

I am not writing of the past ; for all 
the conditions that I have spoken of exist 
in hundreds, yes, thousands, of places all 
over the land. One need not eo to the 
far West to find them ; they exist in every 
State of the Union, only varying in their 
types of sin. 

Visiting a home missionary in a min- 
ing region within two hours' ride of the 
capital, in a State not four hundred miles 
from the Atlantic, I found the man in 
one of the most desolate towns I ever 
saw. The most prosperous families were 
earnine on an average five dollars a 
week, store pay. All were in debt. 
When the missionary announced his in- 
tention of oroine there, he was warned 
that it was not safe ; but that did not 
alter his plans. 

The first service was held in a school- 
house, the door panels of which were out 
and not a pane of glass unbroken. A 
roaring torrent had to* be passed on an 



36 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

unsteady plank bridge, over which the 
women and children crawled on hands 
and knees. It was dark when they came. 
The preacher could see the gleam of the 
men's eyes from their grimy faces as the 
lanterns flickered in the draughts. He 
began to preach. Soon white streaks 
were on the men's cheeks, as tears from 
eyes unused to weeping rolled down those 
black faces. At the close a church was 
organized, a reading-room was added, 
and many a boy was saved from the 
saloon by it. Yet, strange to say, al- 
though the owners (church members too) 
had cleared a million out of those mines, 
the money to build the needed church 
and parsonage had to be sent from the 
extreme East. 

Hundreds of miles eastward I have 
found men living, sixty and seventy in 
number, in a long hut, their food cooked 
in a great pot, out of which they dipped 
their meals with a tin dipper. No less 
than seventy-five thousand Slovaks live 
in this one State, and their only spiritual 



WORK IN THE NEW COMMUNITY. 37 

counsel comes from a few Bible-readers. 
Ought we not then, as Christians, to help 
those already there, and give of our 
plenty to send the men needed to carry 
the light to thousands of places that as 
yet sit in the darkness and the shadow? 

HOW THE HOME MISSIONARY BEGINS WORK 
IN THE NEW COMMUNITY. 

First, pastoral visiting is absolutely ne- 
cessary to success. The feelings of new- 
comers are tender after breaking the home 
ties and getting to the new home, and 
a visit from the pastor is sure to bring 
satisfactory results. Sickness and death 
offer him opportunities for doing much 
good, especially among the poor, and 
they are always the most numerous. 

Some very pathetic cases come under 
every missionary's observation. Once a 
man called at the parsonage and asked for 
the elder, saying that a man had been 
killed some miles away in the woods, and 
the family wanted the missionary to preach 



38 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

the funeral sermon. The next mornino- 
a ragged boy came to pilot the minister. 
The way led through virgin forests and 
black-ash swamps. A light snow covered 
the ground and made travelling difficult, 
as much of the way was blocked by fallen 
trees. After two hours' walking the house 
was reached ; and here was the widow with 
her large family, most of them in borrowed 
clothes, the supervisor, a few rough men, 
and a county coffin. 

The minister hardly knew what to say ; 
but remembering that that morning a 
large box had been sent containing a 
number of useful articles, he made God's 
providence his theme. A few days after^ 
the box was taken to the widow's home. 
When they reached the shanty they found 
two little bunks inside. Her only stove 
was an oven taken from an old-fashioned 
cook-stove. The oven stood on a dry- 
goods box. 

The missionary said, ''Why, my poor 
woman, you will freeze with this wretched 
fire." 



WORK IN THE NEW COMMUNITY. 39 

" No," she said ; " it ain't much for 
cooking and washing, but it's a good httle 
heater." 

A few white beans and small potatoes 
were all her store, with w^inter coming on 
apace. When she saw the good things 
for eating and wearing that had been 
brought to her, she sobbed out her 
thanks. 

In the busy life of a missionary the 
event was soon forgotten, until one day 
a woman said, '' Elder, do you recollect 
that 'ar Mrs. Sisco ? " 

-Yes." 

'' She is down w^ith a fever, and so are 
her children." 

At this news the minister started with 
the doctor to see her. As they neared 
the place he noticed some red streaks 
gleaming in the woods, and asked what 
they w^ere. 

" Oh," said the doctor, '' that is from the 
widow's house. She had to move into a 
stable of the deserted lumber camp." 
The chinks had fallen out from the 



40 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

logs, and hence the gleam of fire. The 
house was a study in shadows — the floor 
sticky with mud brought in with the snow ; 
the debris of a dozen meals on the table ; 
a lamp, without chimney or bottom, stuck 
into an old tomato-can, grave its flickerine 
light, and revealed the poor woman, with 
nothing to shield her from the storm but 
a few paper flour-sacks tacked back of the 
bed. Two or three chairs, the children in 
the other bed, the baby in a little soap- 
box on rockers, were all the wretched 
hovel contained. Medicine was left her, 
and the minister's watch for her to time it. 
He exchanged his watch for a clock the 
next day. By great persuasion the proper 
authorities were made to put her in the 
poorhouse, and she was lost to sight ; but 
there was a bright ending in her case. 

About a year after, a rosy-faced woman 
called at the parsonage. The pastor said, 
" Come in and have some dinner." 

" I got some one waiting," she said. 

''Why, who is that?" 

'* My new man." 



IVOI^K IN THE NEW COMMUNITY. 4 1 

'' What, you married again ? " 

" Yes ; and we are just going after 
the rest of the traps up at the shanty, and 
I called to see whether you would give me 
the little clock for a keepsake ? " 

'' Oh, yes." 

Away she went as happy as a lark. 
Less than two years from the time she was 
left a widow, a rich old uncle found in her 
his long-lost niece-, and the woman became 
heiress to thousands of dollars. 

Sometimes dreadful scenes are wit- 
nessed at funerals where strong drink has 
suddenly finished the career of father or 
mother. At the funeral of a little child 
smothered by a drunken father, the 
mother was too sick to be up at the fu- 
neral, the father too drunk to realize what 
was taking place, and twice the service 
was stopped by drunken men. At an- 
other funeral a dog-fight began under the 
coffin. The missionary kicked the dogs 
out, and resumed as well as he could. 

At another wretched home the v/oman 
was found dying, the husband drunk, no 



42 MINUTE- MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

food, mercury ten degrees below zero, and 
the little children nearly perishing with 
cold. The drunken man pulled the bed 
from under his dying wife while he went 
to sleep. His awakening was terrible, and 
the house crowded at the funeral with 
morbid hearers. 

In one town visited, a county town at 
that, the roughs had buried a man alive, 
leaving his head above ground, and then 
preached a mock funeral sermon, remark- 
ing as they left him, " How natural he 
looks ! " 

As the nearest minister is miles away, 
the missionary has to travel many miles in 
all weathers to the dying and dead. Vis- 
iting the sick, and sitting up with those 
with dangerous diseases, soon cause the 
worst of men not only to respect but to 
love the missionary ; and no man has the 
moulding of a community so much in his 
hands as the courageous and faithful ser- 
vant of Christ. The first missionary on 
the field leaves his stamp indelibly fixed 
on the new village. Towns left without 



WORK IN THE NEW COMMUNITY. 43 

the gospel for years are the hardest of all 
places in which to get a footing. Some 
towns have been without service of any 
kind for years, and some of the young 
men and women have never seen a minis- 
ter. There are townships to-day, even in 
New York State, without a church ; and, 
strange as it may seem, there are more 
churchless communities in Illinois than in 
any other State in the Union. Until two 
years ago Black Rock, with a population 
of five thousand, had no church or Sun- 
day-school. Meanwhile such is the con- 
dition of the Home Missionary Society's 
treasury that they often cannot take the 
students who offer themselves, and the 
churchless places increase. 

All kinds of people crowd to the front, 
— those who are stranded, those who are 
trying to hide from justice, men speculat- 
ing. Gambling dens are open day and 
night, Sundays of course included, the 
men runninof them beinof relieved as reof- 
ularly as guards in the army. 

In purely agricultural districts a differ- 



44 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

ent type is met with. Many are so poor 
that the men have to go to the lumber 
woods part of the year. The women thus 
left often become despondent, and a very 
large per cent in the insane asylum comes 
from this class. 

One family lived so far from town that 
when the husband died they were obliged 
to make his coffin, and utilized two flour- 
barrels for the purpose. 

So amid all sorts and conditions of men, 
and under a variety of circumstances, the 
minute-man lives, works, and dies, too 
often forgotten and unsung, but remem- 
bered in the Book ; and when God shall 
make up his jewels, some of the brightest 
gems will be found among the pioneers 
who carried the ark into the wilderness in 
advance of the roads, breaking through 
the forest guided by the surveyor's blaze 
on the trees. 

There are hundreds of people who 
pierce into the heart of the country by 
going up the rivers before a path has 
been made. In one home found there, 



WORK IN THE iVElF COMMUNITY. 45 

the minute-man had the bed in a bie room 
down-stairs, while the man, with his wife 
and nine children, went up steps like a 
stable-ladder, and slept on " shakedowns," 
on a floor supported with four rafters which 
threatened to come down. But the min- 
ute-man, too tired to care, slept the sleep 
of the just. Often not so fortunate as 
then, he finds a large family and but one 
room. Once he missed his wa)', and had 
to crawl into two empty barrels with the 
ends knocked out. Drawing- them as 
close together as he could, to prevent 
draughts, he had a short sleep, and awoke 
at four A.M. to find that a house and bed 
were but twenty rods farther. 

In a new village, for the first visit all 
kinds of plans are made to draw the peo- 
ple out. Here is one : The minute-man 
calls at the school, and asks leave to draw 
on the blackboard. Teacher and scholars 
are delighted. After entertaining them 
for a while, he says, " Children, tell your 
parents that the man who chalk-talked 
to you will preach here at eight o'clock." 



46 MINUTE-MAN ON THE ER ON TIER. 

And the youngsters, expecting another 
such good time as they have just enjoyed, 
come out in force, bringing both parents 
with them. The village is but two years 
old. At first the people had the drinking- 
water brouofht five miles in barrels on 
the railroad, and for washing melted the 
snow. Then they took maple sap, and 
at last birch sap ; but, " Law," said a 
woman, "it was dreadful ironin'!" 

Here was a genuine pioneer : his house 
of loQj-s, hinofes wood, latch ditto, locks 
none ; a black bear, three squirrels, a tur- 
tle-dove, two dogs, and a coon made up 
his earthly possessions.' He was tired of 
the place. 

"Laws, Elder! when I fust come ye 
could kill a deer close by, and ketch a 
string of trout off the doorsteps ; but 
everything's sp'iled. Men beginning to 
wear b'iled shirts, and I can't stand it. 
I shall clear as soon as I can git out. 
Don't want to buy that b'ar, do ye ? " 

In this little town a orrand minute-man 
laid down his life. He was so anxious to 



r 




A TYPICAL LOG HOUSE. 



Page 46. 



WORK IN THE lYElV COMMUNITY. 47 

get the church paid for, that he would 
not buy an overcoat. Through the hard 
winter he often fought a temperature 
forty degrees below zero ; but at last a 
severe cold ended In his death. His 
ofood wife sold her weddlnof-srown to 
buy an overcoat, but all too late ; and 
a bride of a twelvemonth went out a 
widow with an orphan in her arms. 

Yet the children of God are said to add 
to their already large store four hundred 
million dollars yearly, and some think of 
building a ten-million-dollar temple to 
honor God — while temples of the Holy 
Ghost are too often left to fall, throueh 
utter neglect, because we withhold the 
little that would save them. We shall 
never conquer the heathen world for 
Christ until we have learned the way to 
save America. Save America, and we 
can save the world. 



48 MINUTE-MAN ON THE ER ON TIER. 

TV. 

THE IMMIGRANT ON THE FRONTIER. 

Whatever may be the effect of Im- 
migrants In cities, the immigrant on the 
frontier has sent the country ahead a 
quarter of a century. In the first place, 
the pioneer immigrants are in the prime 
of Hfe. They generally bring enough 
money to make a start. They need 
houses, tools, horses, and all the things 
needful to start. They seldom fail. Used 
to privation at home, they make very 
hardy settlers. In some States they 
comprise seventy per cent of the voters ; 
and the getting of a piece of land they 
can call their own makes good citizens 
of them sooner than any other way. 
You can't make a dangerous kind of a 
man of him who can call a quarter sec- 
tion his own. 

In order to show how the pioneer settler 



THE IMMIGRANT ON THE ERONTIER. 49 

from Europe prospers, let us begin with 
him at the wharf. There floats the levia- 
than that has a whole villageful on board, 
— over twelve hundred. They are on 
deck ; and a motley crowd they appear, 
for they are from all lands. Here is a 
girl dressed in the picturesque costume 
of Western Europe, and here a man with 
a great peak to his hat, an enormous 
long coat, his beard half way down his 
breast, a china pipe as big as a small 
teacup in his mouth, his wife like a bun- 
dle of meal tied in the middle, with 
immense earrings, and an old colored 
handkerchief over her head. Behind 
them a half-dozen little ones with tow- 
heads of hair, looking as shaggy as 
Yorkshire terriers, blue-eyed and healthy. 
They are carrying copper coffee-pots and 
kettles ; and away they march, eight hun- 
dred of them and more, up Broadway. 

Here and there a man steps into a 
bakery, and comes out with a yard of 
bread, and breaks it up into hunks ; and 
the little children erind it down without 



50 MINUTE-MAN ON THE ERONTIER. 

butter, with teeth that are clean from lack 
of meat, with all the gusto of Sunday-school 
children with angel-cake at a picnic. They 
are soon locked in the cars, and nieht 
comes on. Go inside and you will see 
the good mother slicing up bolognas or 
a Westphalia ham, and handing around 
slices of black bread. After supper read- 
ing of the Bible and prayers ; and then the 
little ones are put into sack-like night- 
gowns, and put up in the top bunks, 
where they lie, watching their elders 
playing cards, until they fall asleep. 

In the morning you go up to one of 
the women who is washing a boy and ask, 
as you see the great number of children 
around her, whether they are all hers : she 
courtesies and says, '' Me no spik Inglish;" 
but by pantomime you make her under- 
stand, and she laughingly says, " Yah, 
yah ; " and you think of Russell's song, — 

" To the West, to the West, to the land of the free, 
Where Mighty Missouri rolls down to the sea; 
Where a man is a man, if he"s willing to toil, 
And the humblest may gather the fruits of the soil. 



THE IMMIGRANT ON THE ERONTIER. 5 1 

Where children are blessings, and he who has most, 
Has aid for his fortune, and riches to boast ; 
Where the young may exult and the aged may rest — 
Away, far away, to the land of the West ! '^ 

Their train is a slow one ; it is side- 
tracked for the great fliers as they reach 
a single-track road. 

The very cattle-trains have precedence of 
them. We watch their train as it reaches 
the great brown prairie ; - a little black 
shack or two is all you can see. The 
very tumble-weeds outstrip their slow- 
moving train ; but after many weary hours 
they reach the end of the road, so far as 
it is built that day ; it will go three miles 
farther to-morrow. As yet there are no 
freight-sheds, and they camp out on the 
prairie. The cold stars come out, the coy- 
otes' sharp bark is heard in the distance, 
blended with the howl of the prairie wolf. 
Some of them dig holes in the side-hill, 
and put their little ones in them for the 
night. Tears come into the eyes of the 
mothers as they think of home and rela- 
tives beyond the seas. 



52 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

And there we will leave them for twelve 
years, and then on one of our transconti- 
nental palaces on wheels we will follow the 
immigrant trail. Where they passed black 
ash-swamps and marshes and scattered 
homes, we go through villages with public 
libraries ; where they touched the brown 
prairie, we view a sea of living green ; 
where they took five days, we go in two ; 
where they stepped off at the end of the 
road, we stop at a junction whose steel 
rails run on to the Pacific or the Gulf of 
Mexico ; where they made the shelter for 
their little ones in the ground, we find a 
good hotel, a city alive to the finger-tips, 
electric cars on the streets, an opera-house, 
and a high school just about to keep its 
commencement. On the street we notice 
some people that appear somewhat fa- 
miliar, but we are not sure. When we 
spoke to them twelve years ago they said 
with a courtesy, "Me no spik Inglish;" 
but now without a courtesy they talk in 
broken English. The man has lost his 
bio" beard, his clothes are well-made ; the 



THE IMMIGRANT ON THE ER ON TIER. 53 

wife is no longer like a bag of meal with 
a string around it. No ; with a daily hint 
from Paris, she has all the feathers the 
law allows. 

They are making for the high school- 
house, and we follow them. A chorus of 
fifty voices, with a grand piano accompani- 
ment, is in progress as we take our seats, 
after which a boy stands forth and de- 
claims his piece. We should never know 
him. It is one of our tow-headed young- 
sters from the wharf. The old father 
sits with tears of joy running down his 
wrinkled face. He can hardly believe his 
senses. He remembers when his grandsire 
was a serf under Nicholas, and it seems 
too good to be true. But he hears the 
neighing of his percherons under the little 
church-shed ; and by association of ideas 
his fields and waving grain, his flocks, 
herds, and quarter section, rise before his 
mind's view, and he opens his eyes to see 
his favorite daughter step on the platform 
dressed in white, and great June roses 
drooping on her breast ; and the old man's 



54 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

eyes sparkle as his daughter steps down 
amid a round of applause as she says in 
the very spirit of old Cromwell, " Curfew 
shall not ring to-night." 

And this is real. It has been going 
on for a quarter of a century. States 
with whole counties filled with Russians 
voting, and being the banner counties to 
have prohibition in the State's Constitu- 
tion ; or, like North Dakota, with nearly 
seventy per cent foreign voters, driving 
the lottery from them when needing money 
sorely. Men and women who could 
scarcely speak the English language living 
to see their sons senators and Governors. 

All the dismal prophecies about ruin 
from the immigrant are disproved as 
one looks over Wisconsin, Minnesota, 
and the Dakotas to-day ; and instead 
of having a great German nation on this 
side of the Atlantic, as one writer pre- 
dicted, we have in the great agricultural 
States some of our stanchest American 
citizens. 

One of the mightiest factors in human 



THE IMMIGRANT ON THE FRONTIER. 55 

life to-day is the language we use. Three 
centuries ago there were about 6,000,000 
using it; to-day 125,000,000 speak the 
English tongue. The Duke of Argyle 
was once asked which was the best lan- 
euaee. He said, '' If I want to be 
polite I use the French, if I want to 
be understood I take the English, if 
I want to praise my Maker I take the 
Gaelic, my mother-tongue." Foreigners 
comino- here think in their own Ian- 
guage, even though they may be able to 
speak in ours ; gradually they come to 
think in English, but still they dream in 
their mother-tongue ; at last they dream, 
think, and speak in the language of the 
land, and become homoofeneous with the 
nation. 

God's greatest gift to this New World 
is the foreigner. The thought came to 
me while on my way to Savannah : Why 
did not the discoverers of the West- 
ern Hemisphere find a higher civilization 
than the one they left ? Why should 
God have kept so large a portion of the 



56 MINUTE-MAN ON THE E RON TIER. 

world hidden from the eyes of Europe 
for thousands of years ? Had he not 
some grand design that in the fulness 
of time he would lead Columbus, like 
Abraham of old, to found a new nation? 
Take your map and find those States 
which the stream of immigration has 
passed by, and in every case you find 
them behind the times. Strano^e how 
prejudice warps our vision ! Jefferson 
said, '' Would to God the Atlantic were 
a sea of flame;" and Washino-ton said, 
''I would we w^ere well rid of them, ex- 
cept Lafayette." Strange words for a 
man who would not have been an Ameri- 
can had his ancestors not been im- 
migrants. Hamilton, the great statesman, 
was an immigrant. Albert Gallatin the 
financier, Agassiz the scientist, and thou- 
sands of illustrious names, make a strong 
list. One-twelfth of the land foreign- 
ers ! — but one-fourth of the Union armies 
were foreio^ners too. 



WHAT THEY BECOME. 57 



WHAT THEY BECOME. 

When Linnaeus was under gardener, the 
head gardener had a flower he could not 
raise. He gave it to Linnaeus, who took 
it to the back of a pine, placed broken 
ice around it, and gave it a northern 
exposure. \\\ a few days the king with 
delight asked for the name of the beau- 
tiful gem. It was the Forsaken Flower. 

So there are millions of our fellow-men 
in Europe to-day, in a harsh environment, 
sickly, poor, and ready to die ; but when 
they are transplanted, they find a new 
home, clothes, food, and, above all, the 
freedom that makes our land the very 
paradise for the poor of all lands. These 
immigrants have made the brown prairie 
to blossom as the rose, the wilderness to 
become like the garden of the Lord. They 
drove the Louisiana Lottery out of North 
Dakota ; they voted for temperance in 
South Dakota. Their hearts beat warm 
for their native land, but they are true 
to their adopted country. 



58 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

The mixture of the nationahtles is the 
very thing that makes us foremost : it has 
produced a new type ; and if we but do 
our duty we shall be the arbitrator of the 
nations. There is no way to lift Europe 
so fast as to evanorelize her sons who come 
to US. Sixteen per cent go home to live, 
and these can never forget what they saw 
here ; did we but teach them aright, they 
would be an army of foreign missionaries, 
fiity thousand strong, preachers qf the 
gospel to the people in the tongue in 
which they were born, and thus creating 
a perpetual Pentecost. 

One other great fact needs pointing out. 
The discovery of this land was by the 
Latin races ; and yet they failed to hold 
It, lacking the genius for colonization for 
which the Anglo-Saxon is pre-eminent. 
During the last fifty years, over 13,000,- 
000 Immigrants have come to this land. 
Great Britain sent nearly 6,000,000 ; Ger- 
many, 4,500,000 ; Norway and Sweden, 
939,603 ; Denmark, 144,858 ; the Nether- 
lands, 99,522 ; Belgium, 42,102. Here we 



WHAT THEY BECOME. 59 

have over 11,000,000 Anglo-Saxon, Teu- 
tonic, and Scandinavian, of the 13,000,000, 
and almost half of them speaking English, 
while Italy, Russia, Poland, France, Aus- 
tria, Switzerland, Hungary, Spain, Portugal, 
and all other nations sent but 1,708,897 
out of the 13,296,157. And we must note 
also that nearly all of the Latin races came 
within the last few years ; so that we were 
a nation 50,000,000 strong before many of 
them came, and eighty per cent of all our 
people speak English. 

No nation ever drove out its people with- 
out loss, as witness Spain and France with 
their Protestants and Huguenots. Eng- 
land took them, and they helped to make 
her ereat. Often when a nation has actu- 
ally been conquered in war, she in turn 
conquers her victors and is made better. 
Germany conquered Rome ; but Roman 
laws and Roman government conquered 
the invaders, and made Germany the mother 
of modern civilization. Norsemen, Danes, 
and Saxons invaded Britain, and drenched 
her fields in blood. The Normans brought 



6o MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

their beef, their mutton, and their pork, but 
the Enghsh kept their oxen, sheep, and 
swine ; and eventually from the Norman, 
Dane, and others came the Anglo-Saxon 
race. England has four times as much in- 
ventive genius as the rest of Europe, but 
America has ten times as much as Eng- 
land ; and why ? Because added to the 
English colony is all Europe ; and in our 
own people we have the practical English- 
man, the thoughtful German, the meta- 
physical Scot, the quick-witted Irishman, 
the sprightly Gaul, the musical and artistic 
Italian, the hardy Swiss, the frugal and 
clear-headed Swede and Norwegian ; and 
all united make the type which the world 
will yet come to, the manhood which will 
recognize the inherent nobility of the race, 
its brotherhood, and the great God, Father. 



THE ODDITIES OF THE FRONTIER. 6 1 



V. 

THE ODDITIES OF THE FRONTIER. 

As the waves of the sea cast up all sorts 
of things, so the waves of humanity that 
flood the frontiers cast up all sorts and 
conditions of men. To go into a sod 
house and find a theological library be- 
longing to the early part of the century, 
or to hear coming up through the ground 
a composition by Beethoven played on a 
piano, is a startling experience ; so are 
some of the questions and assertions that 
one hears in a frontier Sunday-school. 

I remember one old man who was in 
class when we were studying that part of 
the Acts of the Apostles where the dis- 
ciples said, ''It is not reason that we 
should leave the word of God and serve 
tables ; " the old fellow said, " I have an 
idee that them tables was the two tables 
of stone that Moses brouQrht down from 



62 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

the Mount." This was a stunner. I 
thought afterwards that the old man had 
an idea that they were to leave the law 
and stick to the gospel ; but still it did 
not seem right to pick out men to serve 
the tables if that was what he meant. 

Another would be satisfied with nothing 
but the literal meaning of everything he 
read. So when I explained to the class 
the modern idea of the Red Sea being 
driven by the wind so as to leave a road 
for light-laden people to walk over, the 
old man was up in arms at once, '' Why," 
said he, '' it says a wall ; " and no doubt 
the pictures which he had seen in his 
youth, of the children of Israel walking 
with bottle-green waters straight as two 
walls on either side, and the readinor of 
a celebrated preacher's sermon, where it 
spoke of the fish coming up to peep at 
the little children, as if they would like a 
nibble, confirmed the old man in his views. 

In vain I told him that a wind that 
would hold up such a vast mass of water 
would blow the Israelites out of their 



THE ODDITIES OF THE FRONTIER. 6^ 

clothes ; still he stuck to his position until 
I asked him whether, when Nabal's men 
told him that David's men had been a 
wall unto them day and night, he thought 
that David had plastered them together ? 

He said, " No ; it meant a defence," and 
apparently gave in, but muttered, '' It says 
a wall, anyway." 

Another man told me that if a man cut 
himself in the woods, there was a verse 
in the Bible so that if he turned to it and 
put his finger upon it, the blood would 
at once stop running ; and he wanted to 
know whether I knew where to find it. I 
told him I was very sorry that I did 
not know. 

On the other hand, you may find a 
man with a Greek Testament, and well up 
in Greek, making his comments from 
the original. Here a Barclay & Perkins 
brewer from London, who has plunged 
into the woods to get rid of drink, and 
succeeded. Here a family, one of whom 
was Dr. Norman McLeod's nurse, and a 
playmate of the family. Another informs 



64 MINUTE-MAN ON THE ERONTIER. 

you he preached twenty-five years, " till 
his voice give out;" and here a Hard-shell 
Baptist, who '' don't believe in Sunday- 
schools nohow." 

The minute-man at the front needs to 
be ready for all emergencies, for he meets 
all kinds of oriorinal characters. One of 
the most successful men I ever heard of 
was the famous Father Paxton described 
by the Rev. E. P. Powell in the Chris- 
tian Register in a very bright article 
from which I quote : — 

When ''blue," I always went down to the De- 
pository, and begged him for a few stories. He 
rode a splendid horse, that was in full sympathy 
with his master, and bore the significant name, 
Robert Raikes. There were few houses except 
those built of logs, and these were not prejudiced 
against good ventilation. He laughed long and 
loud at his experience in one of these, which he 
reached one night in a furious storm. He was 
welcomed to the best, which was a single rude bed, 
while the family slept on the floor, behind a sheet 
hung up for that special occasion. Paxton was so 
thoroughly tired that he slept sound as soon as 
he touched the bed; but he half waked in the 
morning with the barking of a dog. The master of 



THE ODDITIES OE THE ERONTIER. 65 

the house was shaking him, and halloing, " I say, 
stranger ! pull in your feet or Bowser '11 bite 'em ! " 
Stretching out in the night, he had run his feet 
through the side of the house, between the logs; 
and the dog outside had gone for them. The 
time he took in pulling in was so trifling as to be 
hardly worth the mention. 

Those who know little of frontier life can have 
no idea of the difficulties to be met by a man with 
Paxton's mission. There was one district, not far 
from Cairo, that was ruled by a pious old fellow who 
swore that no Sunday-school should be set up " in 
that kidntry." Some one cautioned " the missioner " 

to keep away from M , who would surely be as 

good as his word and thrash him. M was 

a Hard-shell Baptist, and owned the church, which 
was built also of logs. He lived in the only white- 
washed log house of the region. Instead of avoid- 
ing him, Father Paxton rode up one day, and 
jumping off Robert Raikes, hitched him to the 
rail that always was to be found before a Southern 

house. Old M sat straddle of a log in front 

of his door eating peaches from a basket. Paxton 
straddled the log on the other side of the basket, 
and helped himself. This was Southern style. You 
were welcome to help yourself so long as there was 
anything to eat. The conversation that started up 
was rather wary, for M suspected who his visi- 
tor was. Pretty soon Paxton noticed some hogs 
in a lot near them. "Mighty fine lot of hogs, 
stranger ! " 



66 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

"And you mought say well they be a mighty 
fine lot of hogs." 

"How many mought there be, stranger?" 

" There mought be sixty-two hogs in that there 
lot, and they can't be beat." 

Just then a little boy went up and grabbed a 
peach. 

" Mought that be your young un, stranger ? " 
asked Paxton. 

"As nigh as one can say, that mought be mine." 

"And a fine chap he be, surely." 

"A purty fine one, I reckon myself." 

" How many young ones mought you have, my 
friend ? " 

"Well, stranger, that's where you have me. 
Sally, I say, come to the door there ! You count 
them childer while I name 'em — no, you name 'em, 
and I'll count." 

So they counted out seventeen children. Paxton 
had his cue now, and was ready. 

" Stranger, I say," he said, " this seems to me a 
curious kind of a kidntry." 

" Why so, stranger 1 " 

" Because, when I axed ye how many hogs ye 
had, ye could tell me plum off ; but when I axed ye 
how many children ye had, ye had to count right 
smart before ye could tell. Seems to me ye pay 
a lettle more attention to your hogs than ye do 
to your childer." 

"Stranger," shouted M , "ye mought sure 

be the missioner. You've got me, sure ! You shall 



THE ODDITIES OF THE FRONTIER. 6/ 

have the church in the holler next Sunday, and me 
and my wife and my seventeen shall all be there." 

True to his word, he helped Paxton to establish 
a school. When I was in St. Louis, there was 
a Sunday-school convention there. A fine-looking 
young man came up to Father Paxton, who was 
then in charge of the Sunday-school Depository, 
and said, — 

" Don't ye know me. Father Paxton ? " 

" No," said Paxton ; " I reckon I don"t recall ye." 

"Well, I am from ; and I am one of the 

seventeen children of M . And I am a dele- 
gate here, representing over one hundred Sunda}'- 
schools sprung from that one." 



68 MINUTE-MAN ON THE ERONTIER. 



VI. 

LIGHTS AND SHADOWS. 

Perhaps no man gets such a vivid idea 
of the dark and briorht sides of frontier 
life as the general missionary. One week 
among the rich, entertained sumptuously, 
and housed with all the luxuries of hot air 
and water and the best of cookine ; and 
then, in less than twelve hours, he may find 
himself in a lumber-wagon, called a stage- 
coach, bumping along over the wretched 
roads of a new country, and lodged at 
night in a log house with the wind whist- 
ling through the chinks where the mud 
has fallen out, to sit down with a family 
who do not taste fresh meat for weeks 
together, who are twelve miles from a 
doctor and as many from the post-office. 

Nowhere in the world can a man so 
soon exchange the refinements of civil- 
ized life for one of hardship and toil 



LIGHTS AND SHADOWS. 6g 

as in a new country. Our minute-man 
must share with the settler all his toils, 
and yet often forego the settler's hope. 
The life among frontiersmen is apt to 
unfit a man for other work. His scanty 
salary will not allow many new books, 
and often his papers are out of date. 
The finding of a home is one of the worst 
of hardships. Let us' start with the mis- 
sionary to the front ; our way lies through 
a rich valley. The moon is at her full, 
and we pass fine farms. The scent of 
the hay floats in at the car windows ; 
fine orchards surround the houses, while 
great flocks of sheep are seen feeding, 
and herds resting, comfortably chewing 
the cud. 

But morning comes, and we must 
change cars. We are in a city of 80,000 
people, with 498 factories with 15,000 
employees, where a few years ago a few 
log houses only were in sight. As we 
change cars we change company too. 
We left the train at a Union Station, 
with its green lawns and trim garden, to 



70 • MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

find a station with old oil-barrels around 
it, the mud all over everything, the train 
filled with lumbermen, with their red 
mackinaw shirts and great boots spiked 
on the bottoms, and a comforter tied 
around the waist. 

A few women are on the train, often 
none at all. Our new road is poorly 
ballasted, and the train bounces along 
like a great bumble-bee. The men are 
all provided with pocket-pistols that are 
often more deadly than a revolver. At 
the first station — a little mouse-colored 
affair, sometimes without a ticket-agent — 
we notice the change. The stumps are 
thick in the fields ; many of the houses 
have the building-paper fluttering in the 
wind ; the streets are of sawdust. You 
can see the flags growing up from the 
swamp beneath. The saloons are numer- 
ous ; and as the train is a mixed one in 
more senses than one, abundant time is 
given while shunting the freight-cars for 
the men to reload their pocket-pistols 
and get gloriously drunk. 



LIGHTS AXD SHADOWS. /I 

" Kings may be blest, but Tarn was glorious.'" 

And so on we go again for forty 
miles, when all leave the train but one 
solitary man, who lies prostrate in the 
car, too big for our little conductor to 
lift, and so he goes to the terminus with 
us. It is getting late, and the last ten 
miles are throuo;h a wilderness of dead 
pines, with here and there a winding 
line of timothy and clover that has sprung 
up from seeds dropped by the supply 
teams. But presently we see a pretty 
stream with bosky glades, and visions of 
speckled trout come up ; then an immense 
mill, and a village of white houses with 
green Venetian blinds, and a pert little 
church. We had expected some good 
deacon to meet us and take us home to 
dinner ; but, alas ! no deacon is waiting, 
or dinner either for some time. For out 
of eight hundred people only five church- 
members can be found, four of them 
women. 

It well nicrh daunts the minute-man's 
courage as he sees the open saloons, the 



72 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

bier, rouorh men, the ereat bull-terriers on 
the steps of the houses. The awful swear- 
ing and vile language appal him, and the 
thoucrht of brinofinor his little ones to such 
a place almost breaks his spirits ; but here 
he has come to stay and work. The hotel 
is his home until he can find a house for 
his family. There is but one place to 
rent in the town, and that is in a fearful 
condition. It is afterwards whitewashed 
and used as a chicken-coop. But at length 
a family moves away, and the house is 
secured just in time ; for the new school- 
master is after it, and meets the man on 
the way with a long face. 

" You got the house ? " 

'' Yes." 

"What can I do ? my goods are on the 
way ! " 

" Oh, they will build one for you, but 
not for a preacher." 

'' No, they won't. Could I get my 
things in for eight or ten days ? " 

" Oh, yes." The minister is so glad to 
get the place that he feels generous. But 



LIGHTS AND SHADOWS. J^ 

the good man stays eleven months ; and he 
has besides his wife and child, a mother- 
in-law, a orrandmother-in-law, a niece, a 
/r^*/^^^^, and a young man, a nephew, who 
has come to get an education and do the 
chores. They are all very nice people, but 
it leaves the minute-man and his wife and 
four children wdth but three rooms. The 
beds must stand so that the children have 
to climb over the head-boards to get at 
them. The family sit by the big stove at 
their meals, and can look out on the glow- 
ing sand and see the swifts darting about ; 
while in the winter the study is sitting- 
room and playground too. 

But this is luxury. Often the minute- 
man must be content \vith one room, for 
which the rent charged may be extortion- 
ate. Even then he must keep his water 
in a barrel out in the hall. In cold weather 
perhaps it must be chopped before get- 
ting it into the kettle. 

I knew of one man who lived in a log 
house. It had been lathed and plastered 
on the inside, and weather-boarded on the 



74 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

outside, so that it was very warm, and so 
thick that you could not hear the storms 
outside, which raged at times for days to- 
gether. 

One day late in March a fearful snow- 
storm arose, and for three days and nights 
the snow came thick and fast. Luckily 
it thawed fast too. On the fourth day 
there was need for the minute-man to eo 
for the doctor, who lived some miles away. 
On the road he engaged a woman to go 
to his house, where her services were in 
demand. After he had summoned the 
doctor the good man took his time, and 
reached home in the afternoon. He w^as 
greeted by a duet from two young stran- 
gers from a far land. 

Night closed in fast ; the house was 
so thick that no one suspected another 
storm ; but on going out to milk the cow, 
it was storminof aofain, and the man saw 
he had need to be careful or he would 
not find his way back from the barn, 
though it was only a few yards away. 

When he reached the house, the good 



LIGHTS AND SHADOWS. 75 

lady visitor, who had insisted that she 
could not stay later than evening, gave 
up all hope of getting home that night. 
She stayed a fortnight ! For this time 
the storm ragged without thawino-, and for 
three nights and days the snow piled up 
over the windows, and almost covered the 
little pines, in drifts fifteen feet deep. 
Not a horse came by for two weeks. 

Once another man started In a storm on 
a siriiilar errand ; but in spite of his love, 
courage, and despair, he was overwhelmed, 
and sinking in agony in the drift, he never 
moved again. When the storm was over, 
the sun came out ; and what a mockery 
it seemed ! The squirrels ran nimbly up 
the trees, the blue jays called merrily ; but 
the settlers looked over the white expanse, 
and missed the gray smoke that usually 
rose from the little log shanty. 

The men gathered to break the roads ; 
the ox-team and snow-plough were brought 
out, and the dogs were wild with delight 
as they ploughed up the snow with their 
snouts, and barked for very joy ; but the 



']6 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

men were sorrowful, and worked as for 
life and death. Half way to the house the 
husband was found motionless as a statue, 
his blue eyes gazing up into the sky. The 
men redoubled their efforts, and gained the 
house. The stoutest heart quailed. A poor 
cat was mewing piteously in the window. 
And when at last the oldest man went in, 
he found mother and new-born child frozen 
to death. 



SATURDAY AFTERNOON IN THE SOUTH. J J 

VII. 

SATURDAY AFTERNOON IN THE SOUTH. 

The South has two kinds of frontier, 
— that which has never been settled, and 
once thickly settled parts that have grown 
up to wild woods and wastes since the 
war. In old times the slave had a half- 
holiday on Saturday, wdiich custom the 
colored brother still keeps up ; and a more 
picturesque scene is not to be found than 
that presented by a town, say of three 
thousand inhabitants, wdiere the county 
has seven colored people to one white. 

Never was such a motley company gath- 
ered in one place, — old men with griz- 
zled heads, all with a rabbit-foot in their 
pocket, a necklace for a charm around 
their necks, their bronzed breasts open 
to view ; old mammies with scarlet ban- 
dannas ; young belles of all shades — here 
a mulatto girl in pale-blue dress and 



y^ MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

pointed shoes, her waist as disfigured as 
any Parisian's, there a mammoth, coal- 
black negro driving a pair of splendid 
mules. 

Here is an original turnout ; it was 
once a sulky. The shafts stick out above 
the orreat ears of the mule ; the seat has 
been replaced by an old rocking-chair ; 
the wheels are wired-up pieces of a small 
barrel that have replaced some of the 
spokes, while fully half the harness is 
made up of rope, string, and wire. The 
owner's clothes are one mass of patch- 
work, and his hat is full of holes, out 
of which the unruly wool escapes and 
keeps his hat from blowing off. 

The sidewalk presents a moving pano- 
rama unmatched for richness of color. As 
we leave the town, we ride past planta- 
tions that once had palatial residences, 
whose owners had from one to three 
thousand slaves, the little log cabins ar- 
ranged around and near the house. In 
many cases the houses are still there, but 
dilapidated. 



SATURDAY AFTERNOON IN THE SOUTH. 79 

Here, where each white person was 
once worth on an average thirty thousand 
dollars, to-day you may buy land for a 
dollar an acre, with all the buildings. It 
is a lovely park-like country, with clear 
streams running through meadows, branch- 
ing into a dozen channels, where the fish 
dart about ; and the trees shade and per- 
fume the air with their rich blossoms, and 
the whole region is made exquisitely vocal 
with the song of the peerless mocking- 
bird. Here, too, the marble crops out 
from the soil, and some of the richest 
iron ore in the world, all waiting for the 
spirit of enterprise to turn the land into 
an Eldorado. 

To be sure, there are obstacles ; but the 
Southern man of to-day was born into 
conditions for which he is not responsible, 
any more than his father and ancestors 
before him were responsible for theirs. 
And those that started the trouble lived 
in a day when men knew no better. Did 
not old John Hawkins as he sailed the 
seas in his good ship Jesus, packed with 



8o MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

Guinea negroes, praise God for his great 
success ? So we find the men of that 
day piously presenting their pastor and 
the church with a good slave, and con- 
siderino- it a meritorious action. 

Time, with colonies settling in the new 
South, will yet bring back prosperity 
without the old taint, and keep step with 
all that is o-ood in the nation. It cannot 
be done at once. I knew an energetic 
American who had built a town, and 
thought he would go South, and at least 
start another; but, said he, "I had not 
been there a week when I felt, as I rocked 
to- and fro, listening to the music of the 
birds, and catching the fragrance of the 
jessamine, that I did not care whether 
school kept or not." 

There is no great virtue in the activity 
that walks fast to keep from freezing. 
We owe a large portion of our goodness 
to Jack Frost. 

Dr. Ryder tells a story of one of our 
commercial travellers who had been over- 
taken by night, and had slept in the home 



SATURDAY AFTERNOON IN THE SOUTH. 8 1 

of a poor white. In the morning he 
naturally asked whether he could wash. 
"Ye can, I reckon, down to the branch." 
A little boy belonging to the house fol- 
lowed him ; for such clothes and jewellery 
the lad had never before seen. After 
seeing the man wash, shave, and clean 
his teeth, he could hold in no longer, 
and said, — 

" Mister, do you wash every day? " 

"Yep." 

" And scrape yer face with that knife ? " 

" Yep." 

"And rub yer teeth too?" 

" Yep." 

" Wal, yer must be an awful lot of 
trouble to yerself." 

Civilization undoubtedly means an aw- 
ful lot of trouble. 



82 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

VIII. 

ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN. 

The frontier is the place to find all 
sorts of conditions and also of men. 
Monotony is not one of the troubles of 
the minute-man. He is frequently too 
poor to dress in a ministerial style, and 
quite often he is not known until he 
begins the services. This sometimes 
leads to the serio-comic, as witness the 
followino- : — 

Our man was looking over a portion 
of the country where he wished to locate, 
and in making the necessary inquiries he 
asked many questions about homesteads 
and timber claims. Notice havinor been 
given that there would be preaching at 
the schoolhouse, the people assembled; 
and while waiting for the preacher, they 
discussed this stranger, whom they all 
thought to be a claim jumper. He cer- 



ALL SORTS AND CONDLTIOXS OF MEN. 83 

tainly was not a very handsome man. 
They proposed to hang him to the first 
tree. Trees were scarce there, and pos- 
sibly that fact saved him. He came up 
while they were talking, entered the 
schoolhouse, and fi-om the desk told them 
he was the preacher, and was going to 
settle among them. Here was a prom- 
ising field, where people were ready to 
hang a man on their way to church. It 
is a fact that where we find people ready 
for deeds of this kind we have the ma- 
terial for old-fashioned revivals of the 
Cartwright type. 

When Jesse James was shot, it was easy 
to find a man to preach a sermon full of 
hope to the bereaved relations, and to 
crown the ruffian with martyrdom. 

The minute-man has some hair-breadth 
escapes. He comes upon a crowd of so- 
called vigilants, who have just hanged 
some men for horse-thievery ; and, as 
he has on store-clothes, he narrowly es- 
capes the same fate. In one instance he 
was able to prove too late that they had 



84 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

hanged an Innocent lad ; and in that case 
the poor boy had not only pleaded his 
innocence but had explained that he was 
tired, and had been invited to ride by the 
eano- who had stolen the horses, the men 
themselves corroborating his story ; but it 
did not avail; and the poor boy was strung 
up, and a mother's heart was broken in 
the far East. Often these border ruffians 
act from unaccountable impulse, just as 
the Indians would torture some captives 
and adopt others from mere whim. 

It is an awful commentary on the 
condition of things on our frontiers, that 
a man has a better chance of escape when 
he has murdered a fellow creature than 
when he has stolen a horse. And yet 
in this year 1895, I have seen a man who 
was trying in vain to sell a horse for $1.50. 

To illustrate how much more valuable 
life is than gold, a minister relates this 
anecdote of a California miner who, to 
save a young girl in a shipwreck, threw 
his belt of gold away and saved her life. 
After the meeting was over a matronly 



ALL SORTS AND CONDiriONS OF MEN. 85 

woman came up to him and said, " Sir, 
I was the young girl the miner saved." 
Or he enters a log house, and finds a 
beautiful woman and her no less beau- 
tiful dauorhter, and soon learns that, a 
few years before, they were moving among 
the brilliant throng that surround roy- 
alty in Europe ; and in that little room 
the mother has the dress and some of 
the jewels in w^hich she was presented 
to Queen Victoria. He finds them in 
the little log house, apparendy contented ; 
but there is a romance and a mystery 
here that many would like to unravel. 
Or, maybe, he enters the neat frame 
house of a broken-down Wall-street stock- 
broker, who with the remnants of his 
fortune hopes to retrieve himself upon his 
one hundred and sixty acre homestead, 
and who, with his refined and cultured 
family, makes an oasis in the desert for 
the tired missionary. 

In the winter he sometimes rides a 
hundred miles to Conference, and time 
and again is upset as he attempts to pass 



86 MINUTE-MAN ON THE ERONTIER. 

throuorh the immense drifts. His harness 
gives way when he is miles from a house ; 
and he must patch it up as best he can 
from the other harness, and lead one 
horse. He must learn to ride a tricking 
broncho, to sleep out on the prairie, to 
cover himself with a snowdrift to keep 
from freezing, and in case of extremity to 
kill his horse and crawl inside, perhaps 
barely to escape with his life as the w^arm 
body changes into a refrigerator. If he 
lives in a sod house, he must often put 
the sheets above his head to keep away 
the lizards that crawl out as the weather 
becomes warm, and an occasional rattler 
waking up from his torpid winter sleep. 
At times the rains thaw his roof out, 
and it drops too ; and then he must re- 
shinele with sod. 

Often he is called to go forty and fifty 
miles to visit the sick, to sit up with the 
dying, and to cheer their last moments. 
He can and does do more useful work 
when attending the poor and sickly than 
in any other way. Many a family has 



ALL SORTS AXD CONDITLOXS OF MEN. 8/ 

been won through the devotion of the 
minute-man to some poor httle sufferer. 

One day he meets a man hauhng wood 
with a pair of wretched mules. The man 
is dressed in blue denim, the trousers are 
stuffed into boots that are full of holes. 
A great sombrero hat is on his head. 
By his side is a beautiful young woman. 
She is the wife. He finds on inquiry 
that the man has been a brilliant preacher, 
waiter, and lecturer; yet here, two thou- 
sand miles from his Eastern home, he 
is hauling railway ties for a living. 

I once visited a family living in a 
house so small that the kitchen would 
barely hold more than one person at a 
time. There was a sick man there, 
whom I used to call upon two and 
three times a week. In order to turn 
himself, he had a leather strap hung 
from the rafters. The woman of the 
house was of a cruel disposition. She 
was the second wife of the sick man's 
brother, and had a daughter who was 
about thirteen years of age, but who was 



88 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

large for her years. I used to find this 
child workinof about in her bare feet and 
singing, " I'm so glad that my Father 
in heaven." And I felt quite encour- 
aged, as the child had a bad reputa- 
tion. 

One day this girl came to the parson- 
age and brought a silver napkin-ring, 
saying it was a New Year's gift, and 
that her mother was sorry she could not 
have engraved upon it ''For my dear 
pastiireT My wife said we ought not 
to take it ; but I replied, — 

"Yes; these people get fair wages, 
and would feel offended." 

So we kept it. Some days after, as 
two men were felling a large pine-tree 
which was hollow at the base, they were 
surprised to see albums, bracelets, nap- 
kin-rings, comxbs, spoons, and other arti- 
cles fallinof out. About this time a 
saleswoman had been missing just such 
things from her counter ; and it was soon 
discovered that my youthful convert was 
a first-class kleptomaniac, equal to any 



ALL SORTS AND CONDITIOXS OL' MEX. 89 

city thief of the same class. Her mode 
of operation was to call the woman's at- 
tention to something on the shelf behind 
her ; then taking anything within reach, 
and with an '' Oh, how pretty ! " she 
would decamp. 

I met the mother on my way to visit 
the sick man. '' O Elder!" she said, 
" I am in a peck of trouble. That gal 
of mine has cleared off on a raft with a 
lumberman, and she has been stealing 
too. What shall I do?" 

As I knew that the woman had tied 
the girl's tongue with whip-cord, and 
beaten it with birch bark until it bled, 
to cure her of lying, I said, " You had 
better send her to the Reform School." 
It appeared afterward that the man who 
had run off with the girl was a minis- 
ter's son ; and he said in court he had 
taken pity on the girl, and wanted to 
save her from the cruelty of her mother. 
The girl was sent to the Reform School 
at Adrian, but not before she had eiven 
the sheriff the slip, and taken another 



90 MIXUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

girl with her, getting as far as Roches- 
ter, N.Y., before she was recaptured. 

Sometimes in these frontier towns the 
sermon is stopped in a most unexpected 
way. I remember one good man preach- 
ing on Jacob. An old woman, who was 
sitting on the front bench, became deeply 
interested ; and when the minister said, 
" When the morning came, Jacob, who 
had served all these long years for his 
wife, found not the beautiful Rachel, 
but the weak-eyed Leah," the old lady 
broke out with '' Oh, my God, what a 
pity ! " That ended the discourse, and 
the benediction was omitted. 

In another back settlement a young 
student was preaching on the Prodigal 
Son. " And what, my friends, would you 
have done had your son come home 
in that way after such conduct ? " The 
answer was prompt, " I would have shot 
the boy, and saved the calf." 



■ /^M'" '■«'^- •«'■*•"*!:,' 




THE SOUTH IN SPRINGTIME. 9 1 

IX. 

THE SOUTH IN SPRINGTIME. 

" You are eolne the wrone time of 
the year," was the reiterated warning of 
friends who heard that I was to make 
a Southern trip. Experience proved 
them to be as far astray as if they had 
warned one from going North in June ; 
for the May of the South is the June 
of the North. Nature was revelhne in 
her fullest dress, making a symphony in 
green, — all shades, from the pale tint 
of the chinquapin and persimmon, to 
the deep indigo of the long-leafed pine, 
and the tender purple green of the 
distant hills, — a perfect extravaganza of 
vegetable growth. 

The weather was delicious ; from the 
south and east came the ocean air, and 
from the north and west the balsam-laden 
ozone of the mountains, every turn in 



92 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

the road reveallnor new beauties. The 
cool Southern homes, with their wide 
verandas covered with honeysuckle, and 
great hallways running right through 
the house, often revealing some of the 
daintiest little pictures of light and shade, 
from apple or china tree varied with the 
holly, the Cape jasmine, and scupper- 
nono- vines, the latter often covering a 
half-acre of land, while chanticleer and 
his seraglio strutted in proud content, 
monarch of all he surveyed. High on a 
pole hung the hollowed gourds, homes 
for the martins and swallows. The mis- 
tress sat at her sewing in the shady 
porch, while out beyond, under a giant 
oak, with gracefully twined turban and 
brilliant dress, the sable washerwoman 
hung out her many-colored pieces, mak- 
ing altogether a scene of rural beauty 
seldom surpassed. 

What joy to sit in the ample porch 
and look over the great cotton-fields 
with their regular rows of bluish ereen, 
variegated by the tender hue of the young 



THE SOUTH IN SPRINGTIME. 93- 

corn, and a dozen shades of as many 
species of oak, while the brilHant tuHp- 
tree and the distant hills, now of softest 
blue, contrasting- with the rich, red ochre 
of the soil, make up a picture never to 
be forgotten. Cooled by the breezes that 
sweep through the porch, one dozes away 
an hour of enchantment. The neorroes 
with their mules, in the distance, in al- 
most every field, add to its piquancy, and 
often, floatinor on the wind, come wild 
snatches in weird minor notes the broken 
rhythm of their old Virginia reel, per- 
formed with the rollicking exuberance of 
the race. 

The reader must not suppose that all 
Southern homes answer to the above 
description. Thousands of houses are 
without a porch or any shade save that 
which nature gives. The chimneys are 
built on the outside, sometimes of stone, 
sometimes of brick or of clay, while 
layers of one-inch slats hold the chim- 
ney together ; but, as a rule, so prodigal 
is nature that a vine of some kind will 



94 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

entwine around their otherwise bare and 
severe outHnes, and make them, hke some 
dogs, homely enough to be handsome. 

Although these poorer houses are de- 
void of all artificial attempts to beautify, 
they are frequently built near a great oak 
and the dense china-tree for shade, while 
wild fruits of many kinds grow promiscu- 
ously about. In every hedgerow, and 
within a stone's throw of nearly every 
country home, will be found partridges, 
wild pigeons, and all sorts of small game, 
with plenty of foxes to keep it in reason- 
able bounds, while every household has 
a number of hounds and curs for -the 
foxes. But with all the varied beauty 
of the scene, the New Englander con- 
stantly misses the well-kept lawn, — for 
here bare ground always takes the place 
of o-rass, — and there are no villaofe orreen 
and fine shaded roads, and that general 
neatness which distinguishes the rural 
scenes of '' the Pilorrim land." 

A few words about the people. They 
are as warm-hearted as their climate ; 



THE SOUTH IN SPRIXGTIME. 95 

the Stranger is greeted with such hivlta- 
tions as these : " Come in ; " *' Take a 
chair; " " Have some of the fry ; " '' Have 
some fresh water." They are up with 
the sun — family prayer by five, a.m. ; 
breakfast half an hour later ; dinner at 
one ; supper at seven ; to bed by dark. 
The churches are plain, costing seldom 
more than eight hundred or ' one thou- 
sand dollars ; doors on all sides opposite 
each other to allow for a good circulation 
of air. A pail of water stands on a form 
near the pulpit. The church generally 
stands in a erove or the forest itself. 

The people are very fond of preach- 
ing. The whole family, from the oldest 
to the youngest, go ; and one may often 
see the mother at the communion with 
a little one at the breast. Sometimes 
eleven or more of a family will occupy 
a wagon filled with oak-splint chairs. 

It takes one back thirty years ago to 
the West, as one stands at the church- 
door and sees the people flocking in 
through winding roads in the woods, the 



95 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

sunlight and shadow dancing upon the 
movinof teams that shine hke satin in 
the bright mornine air. The doo-s are 
wild with delight as they start a covey of 
partridges, and make music in the deep 
shadows of the woods. Here a group of 
young men and maidens are drinking at 
the spring. 

The preacher often is a jack-of- all- 
trades — sometimes a doctor, eettine his 
degree from the family medicine-book ; 
and strange to say, though an ardent 
believer in faith-cure, and with marvel- 
lous accounts of cures in answer to prayer, 
yet prescribing a liver invigorator when 
that organ is in trouble. Some of these 
men are natural orators, and with their 
bursts of eloquence often hush their 
hearers to holy awe and inspiration. They 
have one book, and believe It. No doubts 
trouble them. Higher criticism has never 
reached them. Mosaic origin of the Pen- 
tateuch is unquestioned. Moses and no 
other, to them, wrote the five books, in- 
cludinor the account of his own burial. 



THE SOUTH IN SPRINGTIME. 9/ 

They know nothing of pre-exiHc Psalms 
or Greek periods of Daniel ; but all 
preach Jesus, no matter whence they 
draw their text. In an instant they make 
a short cut for Calvary. 

One brother, over eighty years of age, 
walks fifteen miles, and preaches three 
times. Some of his sermons take two 
hours in delivery, without the aid of a 
scrap of note ; and the talk for days after 
is on the sermon. No quarterlies, month- 
lies, or weeklies He at home to divert. 
No lecturer strays to that region. Here 
and there is a villaore house with an 
organ or a piano, and, of course, a paper. 

I am speaking of the rural South, — and 
nearly all the South is rural, nearly all 
American, even the cities, with few excep- 
tions, and the operatives are Southern, 
and mostly from the farms ; so that one 
may find a city whose operatives live in 
another State, across a river, in a com- 
munity numbering nearly seven thousand 
souls, and most of them keeping pigs 
and a cow (or, rather, not keeping them, 



98 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

for they roam at their own sweet wih down 
grassy, ungraded streets). In such a place 
one meets old ladies of quite respectable 
appearance, with the little snuffing-stick 
in their mouths, or a pipe ; and here 
one small grocery shop may sell two 
hundred dozen of litde tin snuff-boxes in 
a month ! There are cities in the South 
where you will find as fine hotels and 
stores as any on the continent. But from 
any such city it is only a step to the 
most primitive conditions. 

Let me describe a characteristic night 
scene near a large city. My friend met 
me at the depot with his litde light wagon 
and diminutive mule, and we started for 
the homestead. Our road lay between 
banks of honeysuckle that saturated the 
air with its rich perfume ; wild - goose 
plum, persimmon, bullice, and chinquapin 
(the latter somewhat like a chestnut, but 
smaller), huckleberries on bushes twelve 
feet hieh, called currants there, lined the 
road on either side. The house was sur- 
rounded by the debris of former corn- 



THE SOUTH IN SPRIXGTIME. 99 

cribs and present ones ; stables were 
scattered here and there in picturesque 
confusion. One end of the house was 
open, and had been waiting for years for 
its chimney ; there was shrubbery of every 
kind all about. I had the usual hearty 
welcome and supper, and then attended 
the inevitable meeting in the grove. 

In the glare of the setting sun every- 
thing seemed indescribably wretched ; but 
it was May, and night came on apace. 
The stars in the deep blue glowed like 
gems ; and then the queen of night on 
her sable throne threw her glamour over 
the scene, and the stencil-marked ground 
became a fairy scene. High perched upon 
a mighty oak the mistress of the grove 
rained music on the cool night air, — first 
a twitter like a chaffinch, then an aria 
worthy of Patti, then the deep notes of 
the blackbird, then a whip-poor-will, then 
a grand chorus of all the night-birds. 

A short breathing-spell, and off on an- 
other chorus, and so the whole night 
throuo-h. When we awoke the music 



lOO MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

Still poured from that wondrous throat 
of the American mocking-bird. How 
calm, how peaceful, was the scene, how 
pure the air ! The lights went out from 
neighboring cots, and the heavenly hosts 
seemed to sing together once more the 
song of Bethlehem — but alas! Herod 
plots while angels sing. Not far off is 
another little house with its small out- 
buildings. This night it is occupied by 
a mother and three children. The father 
is away attending a religious meeting. 
The servant who usually sleeps in the 
house when the man is away gives a 
trifling excuse and sleeps in the shed. 
Before retiring she quietly unfastens the 
pin which holds the shutter. At mid- 
nieht the mother is awakened from her 
troubled sleep and sees the shadow of a 
man, and then another shadow, and still 
another. The children shrink to the back 
of their bunk. Oh, what a triple crime 
was enacted under that peaceful sky ! 
Mornlne -came. The mockinof-bird still 
sanor, and cheered the returning husband. 



THE SOUTH IN SPRINGTIME. lOI 

But alas, it was a mocking song for him ; 
for instead of pleasant welcomes, he found 
his wife delirious, and his children cower- 
ing like hunted partridges in a neighbor's 
house. The frenzied husband, soon joined 
by friends made furious by the atrocious 
crime (so common in the South), soon 
hunted the ravishers of the little home; 
and when the moon arose the next night, 
the beauty of the scene was marred by 
three black corpses swinging from a 
bridcre. 



I02 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 



X. 

THE NORTH-WEST. 

The first impression a man has of the 
North-west is hke Pat's in St. Patrick's 
Cathedral, — " Begorra, it's bigger inside 
than out." 

Take the map, and see what a Httle 
thin strip the upper peninsula of Michigan 
makes. Now start on the best train at St. 
Ignace in the morning, and It is eight at 
night before you reach the copper re- 
gions or the Gogebic Range. When I 
lived in St. Ignace, and the connections 
were poor, it took two days to travel 
from that port to Calumet. If we went 
by water we had to sail forty miles east 
before we doubled Point Detour ; and 
then we threaded our way among scenes 
of beauty equal to the Thousand Islands 
of the St. Lawrence. Every mile of the 
way is alive with historic Interest. In 



THE NORTH-WEST. 103 

St. lo^nace lie the bones of Father 
Marquette ; across the Straits, Mack- 
inaw City, where the terrible massacre oc- 
curred, spoken of by Parkman ; midway, 
is Mackinaw Island, called by the In- 
dians The Great Turtle. 

Here to-day on the Island are the old 
block forts, and here the little iron safe in 
which John Jacob Astor kept his money 
when in the fur-trade. Full of natural 
beauty, to-day the past and present crowd 
one another. Here are Indians, half- 
breeds, and Americans, and modern hotels. 
There are no mosquitoes ; for the Island 
is but three miles in diameter, and the 
wind blows too strono- for them.. Here 
you may find the lilac in full bloom on 
the Fourth of July, and in the fall deli- 
cious blue plums that have not been hurt 
by the black knot. The daylight is 
nearly eighteen hours long in midsum- 
mer. The people are sowing oats when 
the southern farmers in the State are 
thinking of cutting theirs. In April, 
near Grand Rapids, I picked the arbutus. 



104 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

In early May, at Vanderbilt, I picked It 
again, and saw pure white snow in 
patches In the woods. Later in May I 
saw It aeain north of the Straits of Mack- 
inaw, and in June I found it in the Ke- 
weenak Peninsula. At Hancock I saw a 
foot of snow compressed under the cord- 
wood, and some between buildings not 
exposed to the sun. On account of the 
lateness of the season, pease escape the 
bugs, which are elsewhere so destructive ; 
and thousands of bushels of seed are 
sent every year to the upper Peninsula. 
But to return to St. lo^nace. It is so 
unlike any other American town, that I did 
not wonder at an old lady of over ninety, 
who was born there, speaking of her visit 
to Detroit as the time when she went to 
the States. Here the old Catholic church 
elates back to the early days of French 
settlement. The lots run from the water- 
front back. Your Frenchman must have 
a water-front, no matter how narrow. So 
the town was four miles long, and com- 
posed mostly of one street, which fol- 



THE NORTH-WEST. IO5 

lowed the water-front ; and although there 
were four thousand people living there in 
1884, and we had a mayor, the primeval 
forest came right into the city. 

The only house I could get was new, 
— so new that we moved in while the 
floors were still w^et. The lumber in it 
was green, and we could not open the 
sashes for months; but before winter 
came, the shrinkage caused the windows 
to rattle like castanets. To get our fur- 
niture there, we had to cross the railway 
tracks twice, — once the regular road, and 
then the branch which ran to the great 
furnace at the point. And yet so new 
was everything in this old town, that 
our street had not been graded, and 
our wagons had to cross land wdiere they 
sunk up to the axles. A few miles up 
the road the deer, the wolves, and black 
bear lived ; and no less than eleven deer 
w^ere seen in the road at one time near 
Allenville. We moved in the month of 
June, and put up our base-burner, and 
started the fire. 



I06 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

The climate is delicious from June to 
October ; the air and waters are as clear 
as crystal. You can see fish forty feet be- 
low you, and the color of the pebbles at 
the bottom. There is an indescribable 
beauty about these northern shores ; the 
tender green of the larch-fir, or tamarack, 
the different shades of blue-green among 
the cedars, the spruce, hemlock, and bal- 
sam, mixed with the lovely birch, and 
multi-colored rocks, make up some of the 
loveliest scenery on the continent. Little 
islands, so small that but one or two trees 
can find root, up to the islands that take 
hours to steam by, while the streams team 
with trout and grayling, the lakes with 
white-fish, muskalonore, and mackinaw 
trout and herring. Thousands of men 
are engaged in the fisheries, and millions 
of dollars are invested. 

You sit at your door, and can see the 
home and people of old France, with 
their primitive canoe, and at the same 
time see propellers of three thousand tons' 
burden glide stately by. 



A BRAND NEW WOODS VILLAGE. lO/ 



XL 



A BRAND NEW WOODS VILLAGE. 

It does not take lone to build a new 
village on the prairie, — the hardest work, 
the clearing of the ground, is already 
done ; but here in the dense forest it is 
a different thine, even when the rail- 
way runs through it. First the men go 
in, and begin to clear the ground. It 
is virgin soil, and not an inch of ground 
but has something growing. Giant maples 
— some of them bird's-eye, some curly — 
are cut down and made into log heaps ; 
black walnuts are burned up, that, made 
into veneer, would bring thousands of 
dollars. 

Such was the state of thines within 
twelve years. To-day it is different. The 
settler will take a quarter section, bark 
the trees to find the desired kind, cut 
them down, and leave for another section. 



I08 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

Rich companies came in, and began to 
devastate the forests to make charcoal, 
until the State had to make a law that 
only a certain number of acres in the 
hundred may be cut. 

In some few cases women will go with 
their husbands, and sometimes one woman 
will find herself miles and miles away 
from another. I -visited one such house; 
and while the good woman was getting 
the dinner ready, I strolled about and took 
notes. On the rude mantel-shelf, I saw 
some skulls, and asked what kind of an 
animal they belonged to. She said, — 

"Oh! them's beavers' skulls. My! I 
wish we had some beavers here now ; I 
would make you some beaver-tail soup." 

"Why, did you have them here since 
you came ? " 

"Oh, yes! plenty of them. When I 
got lonesome — and that was pretty much 
every day — I used to go and watch them 
build their dams. I don't know how they 
did it ; but I have seen them sink a 
log so that it would stay put, and not 



A BRAND xVEJV WOODS J'lLLAGE. IO9 

come up. I tried it dozens of times, but 
could not do it. I had lots of time, 
nothing to read, and the nearest town 
fifteen miles away. I used to think I 
should go mad sometimes, and even a 
land-hunter comino- from outside was a 
godsend. Indeed, I remember one com- 
ing here, and he took sick, and died in 
spite of all we could do. We had neither 
boards nor planks, nothing but logs. So 
we slipped two flour-barrels over him, 
and he looked real nice. We buried a 
little boy too. I keep the graves clear 
of weeds, and plant flowers about them, 
and often sit there with my work and 
think of those early days." 

'' How lonof aofo was that ? " I asked. 

" Four years ago ! Wliy, you know 
there wan't no railway then ; but now, 
— why, I got Zeke to cut down the trees, 
and I can see the trains go by with 
parlor cars and sleepers. There'll be one 
pretty soon if it is on time." And sure 
enough, in a few minutes a long train 
thundered by. 



no MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

Sometimes a train stopped near us, 
and hundreds of men from the south of 
Ohio came with their dogs, guns, and 
men-servants, and went hunting and fish- 
ing ; and, strange as it may seem, you 
can find ten times as many deer to-day 
as you could forty years ago. The set- 
thnor of new lands has driven them into 
closer quarters, and the game-law does 
much good. The State fish-hatcheries 
supply the streams with fry ; and at times 
the men sent out to stock the streams get 
misled by the settlers, who show them 
the different streams, and only too late 
they find they have put the whole stock 
of young fry into the same stream. The 
average conscience is not yet fine enough 
to see anything but a joke in this. 

But to the building of our village. 
Often at first no house has more than one 
room. The men are making their homes, 
and will stop to cut out a piece of the 
log, and make a place for a little child's 
doll. Cupboards, too, are made in the 
same way. 



A BRAXD XEW WOODS VILLAGE. Ill 

Water is one of the Indispensable neces- 
sities ; and, as a rule, the town will be 
built on a stream, or near a spring. 
Sometimes wells have to be due over a 
hundred feet deep. Arrow-heads, and im- 
plements of the chase, and bones of men 
and extinct races of animals, turn up. 

In one town I visited, before the wells 
were dug, the water for drinking was 
brouo-ht in barrels on flat cars, while 
melted snow answered for washing. 

'' But what did you do when that was 
gone ? " I asked. 

''Well, the maple-sap begun to run, 
and then the birch, which was better ; 
but lor! you couldn't iron nothin'." 

I passed a little log house standing 
out of line with the street; and I thought 
it was a chicken-coop, and asked why it 
was built that way. 

"My!" said the woman with a laugh, 
" that ain't a chicken-coop ; that's our 
first meeting-house. Us women built that. 
We had one or two old men to help, and 
the children ; and we women did the rest. 



112 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

We were quite proud of It too. It cost 
fourteen dollars complete. For the min- 
ister's chair we cut down a barrel, and 
covered it with green baize." 

A minister writes, " My room is one 
end of the garret of a log house, where 
I can barely stand erect under the ridge- 
pole. My study-table and bookcase I 
made from rou^h boards. As I sit writ- 
ing, I look forth from a window two by 
three, upon a field dotted with stumps, 
log huts, and charcoal kilns, and skirted 
with dense forests." 

While I was visitincr this section, a 
woman showed me her hands cracked 
with the frost. The tears came to her 
eyes as she said, " I tell ye it's pretty 
hard lines to have to milk cows when it 
is forty below zero." No man can im- 
aeine the arduous work and the awful- 
ness of life in a northern winter. What 
is a joy to the well-dressed, well-fed 
man, with his warm house and the com- 
forts of a civilized community, is often 
death to the poor minute-man and set- 



A BRAND NEW WOODS VILLAGE. II3 

tier on the frontier. I have sat by the 
side of the minute-man, and heard from 
him a story that would bring tears to 
the eyes of the most cynical. 

One man I shall never forget, a eood 
hardy Scotchman, with a brave little wife 
and four children. His field was near 
Lake Superior ; his flock poor home- 
steaders and Indians. The winters have 
a hundred and fifty clays' sleighing ; the 
frost sometimes reaches 50° below zero, 
and is often for days together 30° below ; 
so that when it suddenly rises to zero, one 
can hardly believe it is freezing. Here 
is his story : — 

''We were twelve miles from a doc- 
tor ; and towards spring two of our chil- 
dren complained of sore throats. It 
proved to be diphtheria. We used all 
the remedies we had, and also some 
herbs given us by an old squaw ; but 
the children grew w^orse, and we deter- 
mined to go back to the old settlement. 
My w^ife carried the youngest, and I the 
next one. The other children walked 



114 MINUTE-MAN ON THE ER ON TIER. 

behind, their Httle lees eettine scratched 
with the briers. We had twelve miles 
to go to reach the steamer. When we 
got there, one of the little ones died ; 
and before we reached home the other 
expired. We buried our two treasures 
among the friends in the cemetery ; and 
after a while I said to my wife, — 

"'Shall we go back to the field? 
Ought we to go ? ' 

"Her answer was, 'Yes.' 

"We went back. Our old parishioners 
were delighted to see us ; and soon we 
were hard at work again. Winter came 
on, and God e^ve us another little one. 
You may be sure he had a double wel- 
come ; but as the cold became intense, 
our little lamb showed sio^ns of follow- 
ing his brothers. I tried to keep my 
wife's spirits up, while I went about my 
work dazed. At last the little fellow's 
eyes seemed so large for his face, and 
he would look at us so pitifully, that I 
would break down in spite of myself. 
" He died ; and the ground was frozen 



A BRA.VD A'EIV IVOODS VILLAGE. II5 

over six feet deep, and we had to bury 
hini in a deep snow-bank that nearly 
covered our Httle shanty. My wife would 
go out nights when she could hear the 
wolves howling, and stand with an old 
Paisley shawl over her head, while I was 
miles away preaching to a handful of 
setders in a log cabin ; and when I 
would return I would find her there 
keeping watch, and sometimes I would 
have hard work to get her into the 
house. Pardon these tears, my brother, 
but come they will." 

He need not have said it ; my own 
were running, though my head was turned 
away. 

Yes, we weep, and hold on to our 
money, while brave men and women, with 
their little ones, suffer for the lack of it, 
and lay down their lives for those who 
come after them. How men and women 
can live in fine homes, and spend ten 
times as much on luxuries as they give 
to the Lord, and still sing they love his 
kingdom, is more than I can understand 



Il6 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

— except It be they don't mean what 
they sing. 

The first thing one notices after pass- 
ine the ereat iron dock are the odd names 
on some of the signs. There is the 
''Golden Rule" livery stable, with Its 
attendant saloon. On its left, quaintly 
linking the past with the present, is an 
old log house, built in past century style, 
with its logs hewn, tongued, and grooved, 
but used at present as a printing-office, 
with the latest style of presses. One can 
easily imagine the time when beside its 
huge fireplace the half-breed and the 
Indian squatted, smoked their pipes, and 
told their stories ; for it is not four years 
since that was so. Outside, nailed to the 
logs, is a coon-skin, and underneath it 
the legend, ''Hard Cider." From this 
primitive place issues the democratic Free 
Press. A little farther on, and we no- 
tice " Dr. , horse doctor and saloon 

keeper." A very few more steps brings 
us to the Home Saloon, the Mansion 
House, the Clarendon, and the Young 
Canadian. 



A BRAND NEW WOODS VILLAGE. WJ 

Besides these, there are twenty other 
saloons, with and without names ; you 
will not be surprised when I tell you that, 
on my first visit here, I found a poor man 
had cut his throat after a heavy spree. 
The shame he felt at the thought of meet- 
ing wife and children (who were on their 
way, expecting to find a home) was too 
much for him, and hence suicide. So 
when wife and litde ones arrived they 
found only a dying husband and father. 

Not long after this a young man, the 
only support of his parents, went out 
into the dark night from a dance, dazed 
with drink. He fell on the track, and 
the morning express crushed him to 
death. Brother Newberry, going to con- 
dole with the parents, found the poor 
father bedridden by an accident, and the 
mother, who was furious with drink, held 
by two men. Down on the dock, one 
evening, a poor man fell into the lake. 
He had been drinking to drown his sor- 
rows (a man having run away with his 
wife). The bystanders, among whom was 



Il8 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

his own son, seemed stupidly indifferent 
to his fate ; and when they did arouse 
themselves it was only to bring up his 
dead body. This they laid In the freight 
shed, while the son w^ent coolly to work 
on a vessel close by, and brutal men 
made jests of the misery of the dead 
man's married life. 

To give you an idea of the zest with 
which the liquor traffic is carried on, let 
me say that three days after the ferry- 
boat "Algomah" was stuck fast in the 
ice-drift, and while it was yet dangerous 
to cross the strait by sleigh, a saloon 
was built on the ice about a mile from 
shore to catch the teamsters as they 
passed with freight. When I saw it five 
days later, it had been removed nearer 
the shore ; so that it was built and taken 
down and put up again all within a 
week. 

But come with me out of so baneful an 
atmosphere. Let us cross the Strait of 
Mackinaw on the ice by moonlight. What 
a scene ! It is a wild midnio-ht, the moon 



A BRAND NEW WOODS VILLAGE. II9 

at the full, a light snow falling ; and al- 
though it Is here only six miles to the 
other side, you cannot see the shore, as 
the snow thickens. There are miles upon 
miles of Ice, driven by the fierce gale, 
sometimes Into the depths, again mount- 
ing the crest of some mighty billow, 
groaning and cracking up into all shapes 
and sizes, swirline as if in some eiant 
whirlpool, transfixed and left in all its 
awful confusion. It is orlitterino- with 
beauty to-night ; yet so wild, so weird, so 
awfully grand and solemn, that we invol- 
untarily repeat, " Lord, what is man that 
thou art mindful of him ? " 

The sleighs look. In the distance, like 
a .little dog-train. Now you are gliding 
over a mile of ice, smooth as glass, while 
all around it is heap upon heap ; then 
you pass through gaps cut by the road- 
makers, who have left little pine-trees to 
guide you ; and though the ice in places 
is packed thirty feet deep, you feel a 
sense of comfort and safety as you pass 
from the bleak sweep of the wind into 



120 MINUTE-MAN ON THE ERONTIER. 

the thick cedars on the shore, and nestle 
down as If In the shadow of His wlno-. 

The next crossing is by early morn. 
The sun comes cheerily up from out a 
great cloud of orange and vermilion, while 
here and there are crimson clots and deep 
indigo-colored clouds rolling off to follow 
the night. I cannot describe the beauty 
of this scene ; that needs a poet ; but I 
can tell you of the odd side. Away we 
go behind two Indian ponies, snorting and 
prancing as if they, too, enjoyed the beauty 
of the scene. But look ! not forty yards 
away is the " Algomah." After being res- 
urrected from the ice with dynamite, she 
has begun her regular trips. Bravely she 
ploughs through two feet of blue Ice ; 
and when she comes to the high ridges 
backs up and charges them again and 
again. After hours of faithful work, she 
makes St. Ignace after sundown, seven 
miles from the spot she left at sunrise. 

You will not be surprised, perhaps, to 
find your missionary from Northern Michi- 
gan turning up at Olivet, Southern MIchI- 



A BRAND NEW WOODS VILLAGE. 121 

gan where the Lord graciously baptized 
the meetings with his Holy Spirit. I 
collected seventy-two dollars towards a 
little church, to be called Olivet Chapel ; 
and, better still, quite a number decided 
to be Christians. Best of all, thirteen 
young Christian students gave them- 
selves to God, and will be ready when 
the time comes for the work of Chris- 
tian missions. 

At Ann Harbor I was most cordially 
welcomed by Brother Ryder and his 
church, and received from them hopeful 
assurance of help for our church at Sugar 
Island ; so the time was not thrown away 
in going South. At Newberry, Brother 
Curry has been offered the use of the 
new church built by Mrs. Newberry of 
Detroit. So the Lord is opening the way. 
If we could only get one or two of those 
ministers Avho were seen "out West" 
sitting on the four posts of the newly 
surveyed town, waiting to build churches, 
we could furnish parishes already inhab- 
ited. Seney, Grand Marais, Point De- 



122 MINUTE-MAN ON THE ERONTIER. 

tour, Drummond Island, and many more, 
are erowine, with no churches. 

The last time I visited Detour, a laree 
mill had been finished and was runnlne. 
The owners would give a lot, and help 
build a church. There are some eood 
people living" there. They gave me a cor- 
dial welcome and the best bed. I was very 
tired the first night and slept soundly; 
so I was surprised in the morning when 
the lady asked me if I was disturbed. On 
my saying ''No," she said that on account 
of the rats her husband had to pull up 
the ladder, as they were sleeping on 
shakedowns ; but she was glad I was not 
disturbed. The next night they kindly 
lent me a little black-and-tan terrier ; so 
I slept, was refreshed, and started for 
home, promising I would send a mission- 
ary as soon as possible. 



OUT-OF-THE-WAY PLACES. I 23 

XII. 

OUT-OF-THE-WAY PLACES. 

In making a visit to one Home Mis- 
sionary, I found him living- in a little board 
house, battened on the outside, but de- 
void of plaster. His study-table was a 
large dry-goods box, near the cook-stove, 
and on it, among other things, a type- 
writer. It looked somewhat incongruous ; 
and on mentioning this, the good brother 
said, ''Oh that is nothing; wait until it 
is dark and I will show you something 
else." 

And sure enough, soon after supper 
he hung up a sheet, and gave me quite 
an elaborate entertainment with the help 
of a stereopticon. It seemed very strange 
to be seated in this little shell of a house, 
in such a new town among the pine 
stumps ; and I could hardly realize my 
position as I sat gazing at the beau- 



124 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

tiful scenes which were flashed upon the 
sheet. 

Across the road was a dance-house ; and 
we could hear the scraping of the fiddler, 
the loud voice calling off the dances, and 
the heavy thump of the dancers in their 
thick boots. Afterwards the missionary 
gave me a short account of his trials and 
victories on coming to the new field, and 
It illustrates how God opens the way when 
to all human wisdom it seems closed. 

When he tried to hire a house, the 
owner wanted a month's rent in advance ; 
but a short time after called on him and 
gave him the house and lot with a clear 
deed of the property for one dollar ! 
At the same time he told him that there 
were lots of cedar posts In the woods 
for his garden fence, If he would cut 
them, and added that maybe some one 
would haul them for him. The mission- 
ary chopped the posts, " some one " hauled 
them for him, and up w^ent the fence. 

The missionary felt so rich that he 
asked the price of a fine cooking-stove 



OUT-OF-THE-WAY TLACES. I 25 

that this man had loaned him. '' Oh," 
he said, " I gave you that." The next 
thing was to find a place suitable to wor- 
ship in — often no easy thing in a new 
town. At last a man said, "You can 
have the old boarding - house." This 
was said with a sly wink at the men 
standing by. So Into the old log house 
went our friend, wath his wife ; and after 
a day's work with hoe, shovel, and white- 
wash, the place was ready. The white- 
wash was indispensable ; for though the 
men had deserted It, there was still a 
great deal of life In it. 

When the men saw the earnestness of 
the missionary they turned In and helped 
him, and became his friends ; and In the 
old loe boardinof-house were heard the 
songs of praise Instead of ribaldry, and 
prayers instead of curses, while Bibles 
and Sunday-school leaflets took the place 
of the Police Gazette. 

The other field In which this brother 
works would delight Dr. Gladden's heart : 
350 people, 17 denominations, all "moth- 



126 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

ered " by a Congregational church ; and 
I don't know of another church under 
the sun that could brood such a medley 
under its wings. When the church was 
building, one might have seen a Metho- 
dist brother with a load of boards, a 
Presbyterian hauling the shingles, a Bap- 
tist with some foundation-stones, and a 
Mormon hewing the sills — not a Mor- 
mon of the " Latter-Day swindle variety," 
though, but a Josephite. In this place 
our brother had many a trial, however, 
before o-ettino- his conglomerate too-ether. 
The head man of the villao-e offered to 
give a lot if the church would buy anoth- 
er ; and in the meanwhile his charge was 
five dollars each time they used the hall. 
But the next time our brother went, the 
man gave both the lots ; the next time, he 
said he would not charge for the hall ; and 
finally he gave the lumber for the church. 
The church was finished, and a good par- 
sonage added ; and to-day fashionable 
summer resorters sit under its shadow, 
and never dream of the wild lawlessness 
that once reiened there. 



O Ur- OF- THE- WA Y FLA CFS. 1 2 7 

The next new place I visited was well 
out Into Lake Michigan, and yet shel- 
tered by high bluffs clothed with a rich 
growth of forest trees, so that, notwith- 
standing its northern latitude, six degrees 
below zero was the lowest the mercury 
reached, up to the middle of February. 
This is saying much in favor of its winter 
climate, when we consider the fact that 
in the rest of the State it has often been 
from zero down to forty below for nearly 
a month at a time. 

I do not remember such another month 
in years, — wind, snow, fires, intense cold, 
and disease, all combined. However, in 
spite of everything, the people turned out 
remarkably well, and I managed to preach 
twenty-eight times, besides giving talks to 
"ihe children. 

It took twelve hours of hard drivino- to 
make the forty miles between home and 
the appointment, and we were only just in 
time for the services. I was surprised 
to see the number present ; but what 
looked to me like impassable drifts were 



128 MIATUTE-MAN OX THE FRONTIER. 

nothing- to people who had sat on the 
top of the telegraph-poles, and walked in 
the up-stairs windows off from a snow- 
bank, as they actually did four winters 
previously. The church here has a good 
building, heated with a furnace, and owns 
a nice parsonage where the minister lives 
with his wife and four children. Although 
it stormed every day but one, the meet- 
ings were blessed by the conversion of 
some, and the church rejoiced with a new 
spirit for work. 

I next visited E , a place seven 

years old, which ran up to fifteen hundred 
inhabitants In the first three years of its 
existence. It had about twelve hundred 
inhabitants, and ours was the only church- 
building in the place. When the pastor 
first came, there was neither church to 
worship in nor house to live in, save an 
old shingle shanty into which they went. 
It was so close to the railway that it 
required constant care in the daytime to 
keep the children safe, and not a little 
watching at night to keep the rough char- 



O UT-OF- THE- WA Y PLA CES. I 29 

acters out. Ouite a chancre for the better 
has taken place, and a bell now rings each 
nioht at nine o'clock to warn saloons to 
close. 

It was a hard winter, and the storms 
came thicker than ever, blockading all 
railways, and making the walking almost 
impossible. Service on the first evening 
after the storm was out of the question, 
and for days after the walks were like little 
narrow sheep tracks. There are a great 
many things to contend with In these new 
mill towns under the best of circumstan- 
ces ; but when you add to the saloons and 
worse places, the roller skating-rink, a big 
fire, and diphtheria, you have some Idea 
of the odds ao^alnst which we worked. 

In two places I visited, a fire broke 
out ; and one could not but notice the 
ludicrous side In the otherwise terrible 
calamity that a fire causes In these little 
w^ooden towns in winter. The stores, 
built close together, look like rows of 
mammoth dry-goods boxes. When once 
fire gets a start, they crackle and curl up 



I30 MINUTE-MAN ON THE E RON TIER. 

like pasteboard. At one fire a man care- 
fully carried a sash nearly a block, and then 
pitched it upon a pile of cordwood, smash- 
ing" every pane. Others were throwing 
black walnut chairs and tables out of the 
upper story ; while I saw another throwing 
out a lamp-glass, crying out as he did so, 
" Here comes a lamp-glass ! " as If It were 
a meritorious action that deserved notice. 
At the other fire I saw a man wandering 
aimlessly about with a large paper adver- 
tisement for some kind of soap, while the 
real article was burning up. I could not 
but think how like the worldline he was 
— intent upon his body and minor things 
while his soul was In danorer ; and also how 
like is the frantic mismanagement at the 
breakincr out of a fire to the sudden call of 
death to a man in his sins. To add to 
the misery of these houseless people dur- 
ing this Intense cold, diphtheria was car- 
rying off its victims, so that the schools 
were closed for the second time that win- 
ter. These things were used readily as 
excuses by those who did not wish to 



O UT- OF- THE- J VA V PL A CES. I 3 1 

attend the meetlnes. Yet the skatine- 
rink was in full blast. But with all these 
impediments, the conversions in the meet- 
ings, and the quickening of the church to 
more active life, more than repaid for all 
the trouble and disappointment. 

We often hear of "the drink curse" in 
these places, and it is not exaggerated ; 
but there is one crime in these new towns 
of the north that to my mind is worse, 
and a greater barrier to the conversion 
of men and women. It is licentiousness. 
One little place not far from where I was 
preaching boasts of not having a single 
family in it that is not living openly in 
this sin. Although this is the worst I 
ever heard of, it is too true that our 
woods towns are thus honeycombed. 

About the only hope the missionary 
has in many cases is in the children, even 
though he begins, as did one pastor that I 
know of, with two besides his own. He 
started his school in a deserted log shanty 
where it grew to be forty strong, and in 
spite of obstacles it grew. It was hard 



132 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

work sometimes, when the instinct of the 
boy would show itself in the pleasures of 
insect hunting with a pin along the log 
seats. Yet there the missionary's wife 
sat and taught. They soon had a nice 
church, paid for within the year. 

I did not expect to find within six miles 
of a large city such a state of things 
as existed in Peter Cartwright's time in 
Michigan, but I did; and lest I should 
be called unfair, I will say I found there 
a few of the excellent of the earth. 

Let me describe the meeting-place. It 
was in an old hall, the floor humped up in 
the middle ; there was an old cook-stove to 
warm it, while a few lanterns huno- amone 
faded pine boughs gave out a dim light. 
A few seats without backs completed 
the furniture. Here it was that a eood 
brother, while preaching, had the front 
and rear wheels of his buggy changed, 
makine roueh ridine over roads none too 
smooth at their best. Another from the 
Y. M. C. A. rooms of the neighboring city 
had his buffalo robes stolen and every 



OUT-OF-THE-WAY PLACES. 1 33 

buckle of the harness undone while he 
was conduct in Of services. 

Knowing these thinofs, I was not sur- 
prised at finding a rough old Roman 
Catholic Irishman trying to make a dis- 
turbance ; but a kind word or two won him 
over to eood behavior. Much less tract- 
able were the young roughs, who reap all 
the vices of the city near by, and get none 
of its virtues. I had to tell them of the 
rough places I had seen, and that this was 
the first place I had been where the )'oung 
men did not know enouo^h to behave them- 
selves in church. Promisino- without fail 
to arrest the first one that made a dis- 
turbance, I secured quiet. Of course I 
had to make friends with them afterwards 
and shake hands. Oh, how hard it is to 
preach the gospel after talking law in that 
fashion ; but, friends, think how much it 
is needed. As a little bit of brio-ht for so 
black a setting, let me say, that on the sec- 
ond nieht some kind friends substituted a 
box-stove for the cook-stove, lamps for lan- 
terns, and an organ to help in the praise. 



134 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

XIII. 

COCKLE, CHESS, AND WHEAT. 

Rather a strange heading ! I know 
It ; but I have lost an hour trying to 
think of a better ; and Is not society com- 
posed (figuratively speaking) of cockle, 
chess, and wheat? In old settled parts 
and In cities we see society like wheat 
in the bulk. The plump grain Is on 
top, but there are cockle and chess at 
the bottom. On the frontier the wheat 
is spread on the barn floor, and the chess 
and cockle are more plainly seen. As 
the fanning- mill lets the wheat drop near 
it and the lighter grains fly ofl", so in the 
ereat fannlnor-nilll of the world, the eood 
are in clusters In the towns and settled 
country, while the cockle and chess are 
scattered all over the borders. Of course 
in screenings, there Is always consider- 
able real wheat, thouorh the ei'^Ins are 



COCKLE, CHESS, AND WHEAT. 1 35 

small. Under proper cultivation, how- 
ever, these will produce good wheat. 
These little grains among the screenings 
are the children, and they are the mis- 
sionaries' hope. 

In my pastoral work I have met with 
all kinds of humanity, — here a man living 
a hermit life, in a little shanty without 
floor or windows, his face as yellow as 
gold, from opium ; there an old man 
doing chores in a camp, who had been 
a preacher for twenty- five years ; here a 
graduate from an Eastern college, cashier 
of a bank a little while ago, now scal- 
ing lumber when not drunk; occasionally 
one of God's little ones, striving to let 
his lieht shine o'er the bad deeds of a 
naughty world. 

It was my custom for nearly a year to 
preach on a week- night in a little village 
near my home, sometimes to a houseful, 
oftener to a handful. Few or many, I 
noticed one man always there ; no matter 
how stormy or how dark the night, I 
would find him anions the first arrivals. 



136 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

He lived farther from the meetinof than 
I, and it was not a pleasant walk at any 
time. One was always liable to meet a 
gang of drunken river-men spoiling for 
a fiorht ; and there was a trestle bridore 
eighty rods in length to walk over, and 
the ties in winter were often covered 
with snow and ice. 

Then after reachino- the schoolhouse the 
prospect was not enchanting ; windows 
broken, snow on the seats, the room 
lio^hted sometimes with nothino- but Ian- 
terns, one being hung under the stove- 
pipe. Under these circumstances I 
became very much interested in the 
young man. He never spoke unless he 
was spoken to, and then his answers 
were short, and not over bright ; but as 
he became a regular attendant on all the 
means of grace, — Sunday-school, pra)'er- 
meetings, and the preaching of the Word, 
— I strove to bring him to a knowledge 
of the truth, and was much pleased one 
evening to see him rise for prayers. As 
he showed by his life and conversation 



COCKLE, CHESS, AXD WHEAT. 1 37 

that he had met with a change (he had 
been a drunkard), he was admitted into 
the church, and some time after was ap- 
23ointed sexton. 

One night, on my way to prayer-meet- 
ing, I saw a dark object near the church 
which looked suspicious. On investiga- 
tion It proved to be our sexton, with his 
face terribly disfigured, and nearly blind. 
Some drunken ruffian had caught him 
cominor out of the church, and, mlstaklno- 
him for another man, had beaten him and 
left him half dead. I took the poor fel- 
low to the saloons, to show them their 
work. They did not thank me for this ; 
but we found the man, and he was " sent 
up " for ninety days. 

Soon after this in my visits I found a 
new family, and I wish I could describe 
them. The old grandmother, weiofhine 
about two hundred pounds, was a sight, 
— short, stocky, with piercing eyes, and 
hair as white as wool. She welcomed me 
in when she heard that I was " the min- 
ister," and brought out her hymn-book, 



138 MINUTE-MAN ON THE E RON TIER. 

and had me sing and pray with her. She 
belonged to one of the numerous sects 
in Pennsylvania. She said it was a real 
treat to her, as she w^as too fleshy to get 
to church, and with her advancing years 
found it hard to walk. I found out after- 
ward, however, that this did not apply 
to side-shows. From her I learned the 
young man's history. He had lost his 
parents when young; but not before they 
had beaten his senses out, and left him 
nearly deaf; and he was looked upon 
as one not "right sharp." Afterwards, 
he was concerned in the murder of an 
old man, and was sent to State prison 
for life. He was brother to the old 
woman's daughter-in-law, an innocent 
looking body. There were several chil- 
dren, bright as dollars. 

The old lady informed me that she had 
another son in town whom I must visit. 
I did so ; and found him living with his 
family in a little house (?), the front 
of which touched the edge of the bank, 
the back perched on two j^osts, with a 



COCKLE, CHESS, AND WHEAT. 1 39 

deep ravine behind, where the water 
ebbed and flowed as the dams were 
raised and lowered. I made some re- 
marks on the unheakhiness of the loca- 
tion ; and the man said, '' It's curious, 
but you can smell it stronger farther 
off than you can close by ! " I thought, 
what an Illustration of the insidious ap- 
proaches of sin ! He was right, so far as 
the senses were concerned ; but his nose 
had become used to it. I was not sur- 
prised to be called soon after to preach a 
funeral sermon there. One of the daugh- 
ters, a bright girl of twelve years, had 
died of malignant diphtheria. It was a 
piteous sight. We dared not use the 
church, and the house was too small 
to turn round in, what with bedsteads, 
cook-stove, kitchen-table, and coffin. On 
the hillside, with Iop^s for seats, we held 
the service. 

It was touching to see the mute grief 
of some of the little ones ; one elder 
sister could with difficulty be restrained 
from kissinof the dead. She was a fine 



I40 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

girl in spite of her surroundings, and 
in her grief, in a moment of confidence, 
said her uncle had murdered a man 
down South, and it preyed on her mind ; 
but she was afraid to tell the authorities, 
for the uncle had threatened to kill her 
if she told. This confession w^as made 
to the woman she was working for ; and 
though I did not think It unlikely, I 
treated it as gossip. But wdth the facts 
related in the former part of this chapter 
before me, I have no doubt that she 
spoke the truth. One murderer has gone 
to meet the Judge of all the earth ; the 
other is in State prison for life. 

The cockle and chess are gone ; but 
the wheat (the children) are left, — 
bright, young, pliant, strong, — what shall 
we do with them ? Let them grow more 
cockle instead of wheat, and chess in- 
stead of barley ? Or shall they be of 
the wheat to be orathered Into the Mas- 
ter's garner? If you desire the latter, 
pray ye the Lord of the harvest that he 
will send more laborers into the harvest. 



COCKLE, CHESS, AND WHEAT. I4I 

I once saw an old farmer in Canada 
who offered ten dollars for every thistle 
that could be found on his hundred acres. 
I have seen him climb a fence to uproot 
thistles in his neiofhbor's field. When 
asked why he did that extra work, he 
said, because the seeds would fly over 
to his farm. Was he not a wise man ? 

Perhaps no greater danger threatens 
our Republic to-day than the neglect of 
the children — millions of school a^e that 
are not in school, and in the great cities 
thousands who cannot find room. Is It 
any wonder that we have thirty millions of 
our people not In touch with the church ? 



142 MINUTE-MAN ON THE ERONTIER. 

XIY. 

CHIPS FROM OTHER LOGS. 

In the Rev. Harvey Hyde's " Reminis- 
cences of Early Days," occurs the follow- 
ine interesting notes : — 

'' In the spring of 1842 I made a horse- 
back journey across the State (Michigan), 
from Allegan to Saginaw, up the Grand 
River Valley, past where now Lansing 
boasts its elories, but where then in the 
dense forests not a human dwelling was 
to be seen for many miles, on to Fen- 
tonville. Coming on Saturday night to 
a lonely Massachusetts tavern-keeper, I 
found a hearty welcome to baked beans 
and brown bread, and preached on the 
Sabbath in his barroom to his assem- 
bled neighbors — the first minister ever 
heard in the neighborhood. Arriving at 
Saginaw, after a ride for miles through 
swamps, with from six to ten inches of 



CHIPS FROM OTHER LOGS. 143 

water, sometimes covered with ice, at 
the close of a March day I found myself 
on the east side of the broad river, 
with not a human being or dwellmg in 
siaht, darkness already fallen, and only 
twinkling lights on the other side. It 
seemed a cold welcome ; but after much 
shouting and waiting, kind friends ap- 
peared. Man and horse were cared for, 
and two pleasant years were spent there. 
" My nearest ministerial neighbor of any 
denomination was twenty-five miles off on 
one side, and as far as the North Pole on 
the other. To a funeral or a wedding a 
fifteen-mile ride was a frequent occurrence. 
Many scenes come back to memory, some 
provocative of sadness, some of mirth. 
We were raising the frame of our new 
church-building one Monday afternoon, 
when a stranger came with a call to ride 
twenty-five miles alone through an un- 
known wood- road without a clearing for 
sixteen miles, to cross the Kalamazoo 
River by ferry at midnight, with the ferry- 
man asleep on the other bank, and the 



144 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

mosquitoes abundant and hungry — to 
preach, and commit to the grave the bodies 
of eight mien, women, and children who 
had been drowned on the Sabbath by 
tl:e upsetting of a pleasure-boat. Such a 
oight have my eyes never looked upon, 
where all felt that God had rebuked their 
Sabbath-breakino-. This was near Lake 
Michioran. 

'' Passing across the State, exchan- 
ging one Sabbath with Rev. O. S. Thomp- 
son of St. Clair, after retiring to rest 
for the night, I was aroused by a cry 
from Mrs. Thompson ; and descending 
with speed, found that, hearing steps on 
her piazza, she had discovered the door 
ajar, and a huge bear confronting her on 
the outside. She slammed the door in 
his face, and cried for help. I looked out- 
side, examined the pig-pen, to find all 
safe ; no bear was visible. Returning to 
bed again, I was dropping to sleep, when 
a more startlincr shriek called me to look 
out of the window ; and I saw the bear 
just leaping the fence, and making for the 



CHIPS FROM OTHER LOGS. 1 45 

woods. This time he had placed his paws 
on the window at Mrs. Thompson's bed- 
side, and was looking her in the face ; and 
the prints of his muddy feet remained 
there many days. On the following- Mon- 
day we w^ere greeted by a bride and 
groom, who, with their friends, had crossed 
the river from Canada to oret married. 
One being a Catholic, and the other a 
Protestant, the priest would not marry 
them without a fee of five dollars, which 
they thought too much. I married them, 
and received the munificent sum of sev- 
enty-five cents. 

" I have had too sorrowful proof that 
prayers, even from the pulpit, are not 
always answered. On one occasion our 
house of worship was borrowed for a fu- 
neral by another denomination. Going 
late, I slipped in behind the leader at 
prayer as quietly as possible, to hear the 
petition that ' God would make the min- 
ister of this church a perfect gentleman, 
and surround his church with a halo of 
cheveau-de-frise! The first I am sure 



146 MINUTE-MAN- ON THE FRONTIER. 

was not answered ; I am not sure about 
the others. 

" Of personal hair-breadth escapes from 
sudden death my wife kept a record until 
she got to fifteenthly, and then stopped. 
Twice from drowning, twice from being 
run over by a loaded wagon, the last 
time the hind wheel stopping exactly at 
my head, but utterly spoiling my best 
silk hat, and showinor the blessinor of a 
eood stout head." 

The place where this man reined up 
his horse in the swamp, and had to call 
for a ferry, and where neither dwell- 
inof nor human beinor was in sig^ht, Is 
to-day for twenty miles almost a con- 
tinuous city along the river bank. Every- 
thing is changed except the black flies 
and mosquitoes, which are as numerous 
as ever. Now, one other thing, and a cu- 
rious fact too. You might dig all day and 
not find a worm to bait your hook, where 
to-day a spadeful of earth has worms 
enough to last the day ; and this is true 
of all new countries. I have sent thirty- 



CHIPS FROM OTHER LOGS. 147 

five miles for a pint of worms — all the 
way from St. Ignace to Petoskey ; and 
however much the worms may have had 
to do with the vegetable mould of the 
earth, it is only where human beings 
live that the common angle-worm is found. 

The incident of the wedding calls to 
mind one I heard of by a justice of the 
peace, a rough drinking-man, who be- 
fore the advent of our minute-man per- 
formed all the marriage ceremonies. A 
young couple found him at the saloon. 
His first question was, "Want to be mar- 
ried ? " — " Yes." — " Married, two dollars, 
please, — nuff said." 

A few miles above this place the first 
minister who went in was so frightened 
the next morning that he took to his 
heels, leaving his valise behind. The 
landlady, a Roman Catholic, put the boys 
up to pretend they were going to shoot 
him, and so fired their revolvers over his 
head ; he felt it was no place for him, 
and away he went. Indeed, it was as well 
for him that he did go; for often, after 



140 MINUTE-MAN' ON THE ERONTIER. 

they were drunk, what was commenced in 
fun ended in real earnest. However, I 
will say this for the frontiersman, rough 
as he often is, he respects a true man, 
but is quick to show profound contempt 
for any man of the "Miss Nancy" order. 

Ireland is not the only country that 
suffers from absentee landlords. The dif- 
ference in the lumber-camps is often de- 
termined by the foreman. I have known 
places where the owners of a large tract 
of land were clergymen, and the foreman 
was an infidel. His camp was a fearful 
place on Christmas Eve. Twelve gallons 
of whiskey worked the men up until they 
acted like demons. In the mornine men 
were found with finders and thumbs bitten 
off, eyes gouged out, and in some few cases 
maimed for life. In other places I have 
known a good foreman or boss to hitch up 
the teams and brine enouorh men down on 
Sunday evening to half fill the little mis- 
sion church. 

There ought to be in all the lumber- 
camps a first-class library, and suitable 



CHIPS FROM OTHER LOGS. 1 49 

amusements for the men ; for when a 
few days of wet weather come together, 
there is nothing to hold them, and away 
they go in companies of six, seven, 
and a dozen, and meet with others from 
all directions, making for the villao^e and 
the saloons ; and then rioting and drunk- 
enness make a pandemonium of a place 
not altogether heavenly to start with. I 
have known men who were relio^ious who 
had to retire to the forest to pray, or be 
subjected to the outrageous conduct of 
their fellow workmen. 

One man whom I knew kicked his 
wife out-of-doors because she objected to 
havinof dances in their home. She w^as 
his second wife, and was about to become 
a mother, but died, leaving her little one 
to the tender mercies of a brutal father. 
I remember preaching a rather harsh ser- 
mon at the funeral ; but some years after 
I found the sermon had a mission. I met 
the man some hundreds of miles north. 
When he saw me he said he had never 
forgotten the sermon, and added, to my 



150 MINUTE-MAN ON THE E RON TIER. 

surprise, that he was a Christian now, 
and Kving with his first wife ! 

How men can lead such Hves, involving 
the misery of others, and often compassing 
their death, and afterwards live happily, I 
cannot understand, except for the fact that 
often for generations these people have 
been out of the reach of Christian civiliza- 
tion, and so far as morals are concerned 
have been practically heathen. Yet, after 
all, I am not sure but that, in the day of 
judgment, they will be judged less harshly 
than those who have neglected to send 
the gospel to them. 



.A TRIP nV lyORTHERN MICHIGAX. 15I 

XV. 

A TRIP IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN. 

I HAD been exploring nearly every part 
of the Upper Peninsula where there was 
any chance of an opening for Christian 
work; had visited thirteen churches, and 
held meetings with most of them ; had a 
few conversions and two baptisms. I found 
the villages and towns on the Chicago and 
North-Western Railway nearly all supplied. 
There was one place with 1,500 people, 
and another W4th 2,000. The former had 
a Baptist church with about twenty mem- 
bers, and a Methodist Episcopal with 
about fifteen. The Baptists were building. 
The rest were more or less Lutheran, 
Catholic, and Nothingarian. 

Surely there is need of mission work 
here, but — There are large new-fash- 
ioned mills here, with forty years' cutting 
ahead of them at the rate of fifty million 



152 MIXUTE-MAN ON THE ER ON TIER. 

feet of lumber per year. I had excellent 
audiences here and at Thompson, six 
miles away, where there was no church. 
Between these two places is Perryville, 
with 200 people and no church. Both are 
lumbering- towns. 

Another town of importance is Iron 
Mountain, which then had 2,000 people ; 
two Methodist churches, one Swedish, the 
other English-speaking. The place was 
alive with men and full of sin. Where are 
the right men to send to such places ? If 
one sits in his study and consults statistics, 
they are plenty ; but when you come down 
to actual facts, they are not to be found. 
"The Christian Leaofue of Connecticut" 
has much truth in it, but not all the truth. 
Without doubt their unwise distribution 
has much to do with *' the lack of minis- 
ters ; " but it is still a lamentable fact that 
the laborers ai^e few. Not with us alone. 
The oft-repeated saying that '' the Metho- 
dist church has a place for every man, and 
a man for every church," is to be taken 
with a grain of salt. I meet men every 



A TRIP IN NORTHERN MICHIGAX. I 53 

week who tell me they have five, seven, 
nine, and even eleven charges. We have 
a thousand just such places. 

Now, if churches will put up with the 
fifth, seventh, ninth, or eleventh part of 
a man, they can have " a church for every 
minister, and a minister for every church." 
This unchristian way of pushing and 
scrambling in our little villages goes a 
long way to explain the dearth of men on 
the frontier ; and the seizing on " strategic 
points " in a new country often presents 
a sad spectacle. 

I was much perplexed about one place. 
Our minister was the first on the ground ; 
the people voted for a union church 
and for him ; yet two other churches 
organized. When I visited the place I 
found our brother with a parsonage half 
built. There was nothine but the bare 
studding inside — no plaster, winter com- 
inor on, and his little ones couo^hinof 
w^ith colds caught by the exposure. 
Then, to crown all, the house w^as found 
to be on the wTonor lot, wdiich brought 



154 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

the building to a stand-still ; after that two 
other denominations rushed up a build- 
ing — one only a shell, but dedicated. 
There was only a handful of hearers, and 
our minister preached more than two- 
thirds of the sermons there. We had the 
best people with us ; and yet it was plain 
to me there was one church more than 
there ought to be. Had we not been 
first there, and things as they were, I 
should say, *' Arise, let us go hence!" 

I am constantly asked, "When are 
you going to send us a man ? " and we 
have places where there is only one min- 
ister for two villages. Ah, if the pastors 
hanging around our city centres only knew 
how the people flock to hear the Word 
in these new places, surely they would 
say, " Here am I, Lord ; send me." 

In one place I went to, there were two 
women who walked eieht miles to hear 
the sermon. One of them was the only 
praying person for miles around, and for 
some years back the only one to conduct a 
funeral service, to pray, or to preach. At 



A TRIP TO NORTHERN MICHIGAN 1 55 

this place there was an old lady who came 
nine miles every Sunday on foot, and 
sometimes carried her orrandchild. Think 
of that, you city girls in French-heeled 
boots ! In another place of two hundred 
people, where there was no church, a little 
babe died. The mother was a Swede, 
only a little while out. Would you be- 
lieve it, there was not a man at the fu- 
neral ! Women nailed the little coffin-lid 
down, and women prayed, read the Scrip- 
tures, and lowered the little babe into a 
grave half filled with water. 

In another new settlement I visited, 
they were so far from railway or stage 
that they buried a man in a coffin made 
of two flour-barrels, and performed the 
funeral rites as best they could. But 
these people have great hearts — bigger 
than their houses. When a brother min- 
ister was trying to find a place for me 
to stay, a man said, " Let him come w^ith 
me." — '' Have you room ? " — '' Lots of it." 
So I went. In a little clearing I found 
the most primitive log house I ever saw ; 



156 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

but the "lots of room" — that was out- 
of-doors. The man and his wife told me 
that when they came there It was rain- 
ing ; so they stripped some bark from a 
tree, and, leaning it against a fallen log, 
they crept underneath ; and for three days 
it rained. The fourth being Sunday and 
a fine day, the settlers mocked them for 
not building. On Monday and Tuesday It 
rained again ; '' but we w^ere real comfort- 
able ; weren't we, Mary ? " said the man. 
Then he and Mary built the house 
together. There was only one room and 
one bed ; but they took off the top of 
the bedding, and put one tick on the 
floor. ''That's for me," I thought. Not 
a bit of It. I was to have the place of 
honor. So, hanging some sheets on 
strings stretched across the room, they 
soon partitioned off the bed for me. 
Then, after reading and prayers, the man 
said, " Now, any time you are ready for 
bed. Elder, you can take that bed." But 
how to get there ? First I went out and 
gave them a chance ; but they did not 



A TRIP TO NORTHERN MICHIGAN. 1 5/ 

take it. I thought perhaps they would 
go and give me a chance ; but they did 
not. So I began to disrobe. I took a 
lono- while takinof off coat and vest ; then 
slowly came the collar and neck-tie ; next 
came off my boots and stockings. Now, 
I thought, they will surely step out ; but 
no ; they talked . and laughed away like 
two children. Slipping behind the sheet, 
and fancying I was in another room, I 
balanced myself as well as I could on 
the feather bed, and managed to get off 
the rest of my clothes, got into bed, and 
lay looking at the moonbeams as they 
glanced through the chinks of the logs,, 
and thinking of New England with her 
silk bed-quilts and bath-rooms, till, as I 
mused, sleep weighed down my drowsy 
eyelids, and New England mansions and 
Michigan loe huts melted into one, and 
they both became one Bethel with the 
angels of God ascending and descending. 
I visited Lake Linden, and found the 
people ready for organization as soon as 
they could have a pastor. A brother had 



158 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

just left for this field ; and I thought it safe 
to say that we should have a self-support- 
ing church there at no distant day. We did. 
While staying there a man came after me 
to baptize two children. I went, and one 
would think he had been suddenly trans- 
ferred to Germany. Great preparations 
had been made. I noticed a large bowl 
of lemons cut up, and the old ladies 
in their best attire. I was requested to 
give them a baptismal certificate, and to 
sign the witnesses' names, as they said 
that was done by the minister. It was a 
delicate way of telling me they could not 
write. 

But that was not the strangest part of 
the ceremony. The father and mother 
stood behind the witnesses, the latter 
beine two men and two women. The 
women held the children until all was 
ready, then handed them to the men, 
who held them during baptism. I 
preached to them a short sermon of five 
minutes or so, and then, when I had 
written the certificate, each witness de- 



A TRIP TO NORTHEK.V AIICHIGAX. I 59 

posited a dollar on the table. The 
father was about to hand me five dol- 
lars ; but I made him give four of it to 
the children. They would not take a 
cent of the witness money ; that would 
be " bad luck," they said. It was a new 
experience to me. The people had no 
Bible in the house. As I had left mine 
at the village, I had to use what I had 
in my heart. Here again, I thought, what 
work for a colporteur ? 

A great work might be done by one 
or two men who could travel all the time 
with Bibles and other good books, and 
preach where the opportunity offered. We 
might not see the result, but it would be 
just as certain ; and though the people 
might not stay here, they will be some- 
where. There are many places where 
neither railway, steamboat, nor stage ever 
reaches, and yet the people have made and 
are making homes there. They went up 
the rivers on rafts, and worked their way 
through the wilderness piecemeal. Mis- 
sionary Thurston carried his parlor stove 



l6o MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

slung on a pole between himself and 
another man. 

At one place, while preaching, I noticed 
a man fairly glaring at me. At first I 
thought he was an intensely earnest Chris- 
tian, but he " had a devil." After meeting 
he told the people, "If that man talks like 
that to-night, I'll answer him right out in 
meeting." He came, and behaved him- 
self. Some time after he had to leave 
town on account of a stabbing-affray, and 
I lost sio^ht of him for a while. Lono- 
after I was In another place, one hun- 
dred and twenty miles away ; and while 
talking with our missionary there, I saw 
a man coming from a choir- practice. I 
said, "Is that their minister?" 

" No ; he Is our new school-teacher." 

" Why," I said, " that is the very man 
I was talking to you about, who was so 
wroth with the sermon." 

" Oh, no ! you are mistaken ; he is a 
very pious young man — opens school 
with prayer, and attends all our meetings ; 
and I know it is not put on to please the 



A TRIP TO NORTHERN MICHIGAN l6l 

trustees, for they are not that kuid of 
men." But it luas the same man, minus 
the devil, " for behold he prayeth." 

At another place I preached in a litde 
loo- schoolhouse. Close to my side sat a 
man who would have made a character 
for Dickens. He had large, black, earn- 
est eyes, face very pale, was deformed, 
and, with a litde tin ear-trumpet at his ear, 
he listened intently. I was invited by his 
mother to dine with them. I found, living 
in a little house roofed with bark, the 
mother and two sons. One of the boys 
was superintendent of the Sunday-school. 
I was surprised at the first question put 
by my man with the ear-trumpet, — 

" Elder, what do you think of that ser- 
mon of 's in Chicago ? I have al- 
ways been bothered with doubts, and that 
unsettled me worse than ever." 

Who would have thought to hear, away 
up in the woods, in such a house, from 
such a man, such a question? I tried to 

take him away from to Christ. 

After dinner he opened a door and said, 
" Look here." 



1 62 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

There, in a little workshop, was a dimin- 
utive steam-engine, of nearly one-horse 
power, made entirely by himself; the 
spindles, shafts, steam-box, and everything^ 
finished beautifully. The shafts and rods 
were made with much pains from large 
three-cornered files. He was turnine 
cant-hook and peevy handles for a living, 
and to pay off the debt on their little 
farm. The brother had a desk and cabi- 
net of his own make, which opened and 
shut automatically. I was delighted. 
They were hungry for books and preach- 
ing. Are not such people worth saving ? 

These conditions existed over twelve 
years ago, but they are as true to-day in 
all parts of the new^er frontiers. Mean- 
while some of the above churches have 
become self-supporting, and are support- 
ing a minister in foreign lands. 



BLACK CLOUDS WITH SILVER LIXINGS. l6' 



XVI. 

BLACK CLOUDS WITH SILVER LININGS. 

In a former chapter I was just starting 
for the copper regions. Come with me, 
we will board the train bound for Mar- 
quette. 

For some miles our way ran through 
thick cedar forests ; then we reached a 
hard- wood region where we found a small 
village and a number of charcoal kilns ; 
a few miles farther on, another of like 
character. Then, with the exception of a 
way station or siding, we saw no more 
habitations of men until we reached the 
Vulcan iron furnace of Newberry, fifty- 
five miles from Point St. Ignace. The 
place had about 800 population, mostly 
employed by the company. 

Twenty- five miles farther on we reached 
Seney, where we stayed for dinner. This 
is the headquarters for sixteen lumber 



164 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

camps, with hundreds of men worknig in 
the woods or on the rivers, year in and 
year out. They never hear the gospel 
except as some pioneer home missionary 
pays an occasional visit. There are some 
40,000 men so employed in Northern 
Michigan. 

After another seventy-five miles we 
glided into picturesque Marquette, over- 
looking its lovely Bay, a thriving city of 
some 7,000 population, the centre of the 
iron mininor region. Here we had to 
wait until the next noon before we could 
ofo on. 

Our road now led through the very 
heart of the iron country. Everything 
glittered with iron dust, and thousands of 
cars on many tracks showed the propor- 
tions this business had attained. We have 

been mountino- ever since leaving^ Mar- 
to o 

quette, and can by looking out of the 
rear window see that o-reat '' unsalted 
sea," Lake Superior. 

We soon reached Ishpeming, with its 
8,000 inhabitants. A little farther on we 



BLACK CLOUDS WITH SILVER LININGS. 1 65 

passed Negaunee, claiming over 5,000 
people, where Methodism dirives by rea- 
son of the Cornish miners. After passing 
Ivlichigamme we saw but few houses. 

Above Marquette the scenery changes ; 
there are rocks, whole mountains of rocks 
as large as a town, with a few dead pines 
on their scraggy sides ; we pass bright 
brown brooks in which sport the grayling 
and the speckled trout. Sometimes a herd 
of deer stand orazinof wath astonishment 
at the rushinor monster cominor towards 
them; then with a stamp and a snort 
they plunge headlong into the deep 
forest. Away we go past L'Anse, along 
Kewenaw Bay, and at last glide between 
two mighty hills the sides of which glow 
and sparkle with great furnace fires and 
innumerable lamps shining from cottage 
windows, while between lies Portage Lake, 
like a thread of gold in the rays of the 
setting sun ; or, as it palpitates with 
the motion of some giant steamboat, its 
coppery waters gl^am with all the colors 
of the rainbow. 



1 66 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

Just across this narrow lake a royal wel- 
come awaited us from the pastor of the 
First Congregational Church of Hancock. 
This fine church is set upon a hill that 
cannot be hid. The audience fills the 
room, and pays the closest attention to 
the speaker. They had the best Sunday- 
school I ever saw. Everything moved 
like clockwork; every one worked with 
vim. In addition to the papers that each 
child received, seventy-five copies of the 
Sunday School Times were distributed to 
the teachers and adult scholars. The col- 
lection each Sunday averaged over three 
cents a member for the whole school, 
to say nothing of Christmas gifts to 
needy congregations, and memorial win- 
dows tellinof of the eood works in far-off 
fields among the mission churches. It 
was my privilege to conduct a few gospel 
meetinofs which were blessed to the con- 
version of some score or more of souls 
who were added to the church. 

Thirteen miles farther north, and we 
were in the very heart of the Lake Superior 



BLACK CLOUDS WLTH SILVER LININGS. 16/ 

region. It had been up-hill all the way. 
We went on the Mineral Rangre narrow 
gauge railway ; but at broad-gauge price, 
five cents a mile, and no half-fare per- 
mits ; so we were thankful to learn the 
little thing was only thirteen miles long. 

Here we are in Calumet. At the first 
glance you think you are in a large city ; 
tall chimney stacks loom up, railways 
crossing and recrossing, elevated railways 
for carrying ore to the rock-houses, where 
they crush rock enough to load ten trains 
of nearly forty cars per day, for the stamp- 
ing-works of the Calumet and Hecla 
Company. You cannot help noticing the 
massive buildings on every hand, in one 
of which stands the finest engine in the 
country — 4,700 horse-power — that is to 
do the whole work of the mines. Every- 
thing about these great shops works easily 
and smoothly. 

At the mine's mouth we look down and 
see the flashing of the lights in the miners' 
hats as they come up, twelve feet at a 
stride, from 3,000 feet below; hear the 



1 68 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

singing as it rolls up from the hardy Cor- 
nish men like a song of jubilee. Come to 
the public school and listen to the patter 
of the little feet as nearly i,6oo children 
pour out of their great schoolhouse, and 
you will be glad to know there are good 
churches here for trainino- the little ones. 
Calumet, Red Jacket, and its suburbs 
cannot have much less than loooo in- 
habitants. 

But here comes the minister of the 
Congregational church, with a hearty 
Scotch welcome on his lips as he hurries 
us into the snug parsonage, and makes us 
forget we ever slept in a basswood house 
partitioned with sheets. ' Here, too, we 
stayed and held a series of meetings. 
This is one of the few frontier churches 
that sprung, Minerva-like, full armed for 
the work. Never receivinof, but eivino^ 
much aid to others, it has increased. 
Here, too, I found another best Sunday- 
school. In this school on Sunday are 
scattered good papers as thick as the 
snowflakes on the hills ; and the 300 schol- 



BLACK CLOUDS WITH SILVER LIXIXGS. 1 69 

ars have packed away in their hearts over 
52,000 verses of the Bible, that will bring 
forth fruit in old ao^e. It is rich, too, in 
good works — one little girl gave all her 
Christmas money to help build the par- 
sonage. Over a hundred of the young 
people came out in the meetings, and 
signed a simple confession of faith ; fifty 
of them went to the Methodist church, 
the rest remained with us. 

From this place we go to Lake Linden, 
on Torch Lake, where are the stamping- 
works of the Calumet and Hecla mines. 
This company have some 2,000 men in 
their employ, and expend some $500,000 
per year on new machinery and improve- 
ments. Everything in this place is cy- 
clopean ; ten great ball stamps, each 
weighing 640 lbs., with other smaller 
ones, shake the earth for blocks away as 
their ponderous weight crushes the rocks 
as fast as men can shovel them in. Each 
man works half an hour, and is then re- 
lieved for half an hour. Over 300 car- 
loads of ore are required daily to keep 



I/O MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

these monsters at work, day and night the 
year round, except Sundays. A stoppage 
here of an hour means $i,ooo lost. One 
stands amazed to see the foundations of 
some new buildings — bricks enough for 
a block of houses, 2,000 barrels of Port- 
land cement and trap-rock are mixed, the 
w^hole capped off with Cape Ann granite. 
Two wheels, 40 feet in diameter, are to 
swing round here, taking up thousands 
of gallons of water every minute. 



SAB EXPERIENCES. I /I 

XVII. 

SAD EXPERIENCES. 

Fourteen years ago I attended fifty- 
one funerals in twenty-one months. This 
laro-e number was due to the fact that 
toward the south and west the nearest 
minister was ten miles off, north and 
east over twenty miles ; and though 
there were only some 450 souls in 
White Cloud, we may safely put down 
3,000 as the number who looked to 
this point for ministerial aid in time of 
trouble. 

The traveller by rail passes a few small 
places, and may think that between sta- 
tions there is nothing but a wilderness, 
for such it often appears. He would be 
surprised to learn that one mile from the 
line, at short intervals, are laro^e steam- 
mills with little communities — forty, fifty, 
and sixty souls. 



1/2 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

Here and there are many of the Lord's 
people, who, overwhelmed by the iniquity 
they see and hear, have hung their harps 
upon the willows, and have ceased to 
sing the Lord's song. They feel that if 
some one could lead, they would follow ; 
and the call for help is imperative, if 
we take no higher grounds than that of 
self-protection. Hundreds of children are 
growing up in ignorance, and will inevi- 
tably drift to the cities. It is from these 
sources that the dangerous classes in 
them are constantly augmented. 

It is hard to believe that in our day, in 
Michigan, should be found such a spiritual 
lack as the following incident reveals. 
One night just as I was falling asleep, a 
knock aroused me. A man had come for 
me to go some five miles through the 
woods to see a poor woman who was 
dying. The moon was shining when we 
started, and we expected soon to reach 
the place. But we had scarcely reached 
the forest when a storm broke upon us. 
The lio-htnino- was so vivid that the horse 



SAD EXPERIENCES. 1 73 

came to a stand. The trees moaned and 
bent under the heavy wind, and threatened 
to fall on us. No less than seven trees 
fell in that road some few hours later. 
Our lantern was with difficulty kept alight, 
so that we made but little progress ; for 
it was dano-erous to drive fast, and, indeed, 
to go slow, for that matter. We spent two 
hours in going five miles. As we w^ere 
fastening the horse, I heard cries and 
groans proceeding from the house, and 
was met at the door with exclamations of 
sorrow, and, " Oh, sir, you are too late, 
too late ! " 

This was an old, settled community of 
farmers ; some eight or ten men and 
women at the house, some of whom have 
had Christian parents, and yet not one 
to pray with the poor woman or point 
her to the Lamb of God. 

Did they think I could absolve her? 
Did they look upon a minister as a tele- 
graph or a telephone operator, whom they 
must call to send the message? 

We often read of the overworked city 



1/4 MINUTE-MAN ON THE ER ON TIER. 

pastor, and the contrast of his busy Hfe 
with the quiet of his country brother. But 
the contrast does not apply to the home 
missionary who has a large field, as most 
of them have. Let me give some inci- 
dents of one week of home missionary 
experience. On Saturday, a funeral ser- 
vice. Sabbath, two Sunday-schools and 
preaching. Monday, I visited a poor Fin- 
nish woman, suddenly bereft of her hus- 
band, who had been fishing on Sunday in 
company with three others — a keg of 
beer which they took with them explained 
the trouble. Tuesday, attended the fu- 
neral, closing the service just in time to 
catch the train to reach an appointment 
nine miles off. Friday, received a tele- 
gram to come immediately to a village, 
where a man was killed in the mill. 
While there, waiting for the relatives, ex- 
pected on the next train, another tele- 
gram came from home, calling me back 
instantly. 

Yet we cannot stop, for the work 
presses. Did we not know that the Lord 



SAD EXPERIENCES. 1 75 

is above the water floods, we should be 
overwhelmed. 

I am tempted to write a few lines 
about a family that came to Woodville 
just before Christmas. It consisted of a 
mother, son-in-law, three daughters, and 
two sons. Before they had secured a 
house their furniture (save a stove and a 
few chairs) was burned. They were very 
poor, and moved the few things they had 
left into two woodsheds, one of which 
was lower than the other, so that after the 
end of one was knocked out there was a 
long step running right across the house. 
Now, fancy a family of six in here in win- 
ter time, with no bedsteads, a table, and 
some broken chairs and stove, and you 
can imagine what sort of a home it was. 
The widow felt very despondent, hinted 
about being tired of life, and mentioned 
poison. One morning, after drinking a 
great quantity of cold water, she turned 
in her bed and died. The coroner's jury 
pronounced it dropsy of the heart, and 
waived a post-mortem examination. 



1/6 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FROiYTIER. 

I felt much drawn toward the children 
during the funeral service, and spoke 
mainly to them. They seemed to drink 
in every word, and I believe understood 
all. 

Three weeks later a daughter lay d)'ing 
of diphtheria. She called the doctor, and 
told him she was ofoine home to live with 
Jesus, and was quite happy. One week 
from that time a son followed, twelve 
years of age. He also went quite re- 
signed. I shall never forget the scene 
presented at this time ; the dark room, 
the extemporized bedsteads, the wind 
playing a dirge through the numerous 
openings, the man w^orn out with night- 
work and watching, stretched beside the 
coffin, the dead boy on the other bed, two 
more children sick with the same disease. 
People seemed afraid to visit them. I 
gave the little ones some money each 
time I went. The little four-year-old, a 
pretty boy, said, — 

" You won't have to give any for Willie 
this time, I have his." 



SAD EXPERIENCES. 1 77 

Death seemed to have no terrors for 
the Httle ones. I talked to them of Jesus, 
and told them he was our Elder Brother 
and God was our Father. The little boy 
listened as I talked of heaven, and seemed 
very thoughtful. In another week, to a 
day, I was there again. The little fellow 
was going too ; and now he said, — 

" I want you to buy me a pretty coffin, 
won't you ? and put nice leaves and flow- 
ers in it. I am going to heaven, you 
know, and I shall see my brother. Jesus 
is my brother, you know." 

And so he passed away like one falling 
to sleep. I could not but think of the 
glorious change for these little ones, now 
" safe in the arms of Jesus." From a hut 
to a mansion, from hearino^ the hoarse, 
gruff breathing of the mill to the chanting 
of the heavenly choirs, from the dark 
squalor and rags to see the King in his 
beauty, to hunger no more, to thirst no 
more, neither to have the sun light on 
them nor any heat, to be led to living 
fountains of waters, to have all tears 



178 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

wiped from their eyes — who would wish 
them back ? 

I remember in one case a man whose 
wife had run off with another man, and 
had left him with two boys, one an idiot. 
The poor little child was found dead 
under the feet of the oxen, and when 
the funeral took place the man with his 
remaininor son came through the woods 
and across lots to the cemetery, while 
a man with the coffin in a cart came 
by the road. The only ones at the 
funeral were these two and the carter, 
with myself. 

I visited one home where nine out of 
eleven were down with diphtheria. Two 
young girls in a fearful condition were 
in the upper rooms ; nothing but horse- 
blankets were hung up in the unplastered 
rooms, but they did not keep out the snow. 
The father and the man who drove were 
the only ones beside myself at this funeral. 
In one family four died before the first 
was buried. 

It made me think of the plague in Lon- 



SAD EXPERIENCES. 1 79 

don, and the man tolling the bell and cry- 
ing, " Bring out your dead." Scarlet fever, 
small-pox, and typhoid were epidemic for 
some time, and it was then the people 
began to appreciate the services of the 
minute-man. 

Some cases were rather odd, to say the 
least. One night a boy was lost. I sug- 
gested to his mother that he mio^ht be 
drowned, and that the pond ought to 
be searched. Her reply was amazing: 
*' Well, if he's drownded, he's drownded, 
and what's the use till morninof." Here 
was philosophy. Yet at the funeral this 
woman was so punctilious about the 
ceremonies that, seeing a horse which 
broke into a trot for a few steps, she 
said " it didn't look very well at a funeral 
to be a-trottin' bosses." 



l80 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 



XVIII. 

A SUNDAY ON SUGAR ISLAND. 

Sugar Island is about twelve miles 
from Sault Ste. Marie. It is twenty-four 
miles long and from three to twelve wide. 
Its shape is somewhat like an irregularly 
formed pear. Seven-tenths of its people 
are Roman Catholic ; quite a number of 
them came from Hudson's Bay, and what 
others call a terrible winter is to them 
quite mild. 

One Scotchman, who lived there thirty 
years, had never seen a locomotive or 
been on board of a steamboat, although 
numbers of the latter might be seen daily 
passing his house all summer long, — little 
tugs drawing logs, and the great steam- 
ers of the Canadian Pacific Railway, with 
their powerful engines, and lighted by 
electricity. He came by way of Hud- 
son's Bay, which accounts for his never 



A SUNDAY ON SUGAR ISLAND. l8l 

having seen a locomotive ; and he rather 
prided himself on never having been on 
board a steamboat. Like many of the 
trappers of an early day, he married an 
Indian woman. Quite a number of the 
descendants of these old pioneers live on 
the island. Some of them formed part of 
Brother Scurr's membership and congre- 
gation ; one of them was a deacon, and 
a good one too. 

But now for our journey. It was eight 
miles to our first appointment, and we 
went by water. Mrs. Scurr and the two 
children, with a little maid, made up our 
company, so that our boat was well filled. 
My hands, not used to rowing, soon gave 
out, and Brother Scurr had to do nearly 
all of that work. It was a hot, brieht 
morning in the latter part of June — a 
lovely day — and we soon passed down 
the river into Lake George, and after 
two hours' steady pulling, made a land- 
ing opposite a log house just vacated by 
the settlers for one more convenient. 

This was our sanctuary for the morn- 



1 82 MINUTE-MAN ON THE EKONTIER. 

ing. Here we found a mixed company 
— settlers from Canada, ''the States," 
Chippewas, etc., men, women, and chil- 
dren. Some of them came four, five, 
and eight miles ; some in boats, some 
on foot. One old Indian was there who 
did not know a word of English, but sat 
listening as intently as if he took it all in. 

After the sermon, nearly all present 
partook of the Lord's Supper. There 
were not so many there as usual ; for 
one of the friends had just lost a little 
child by diphtheria, and two more lay 
sick ; and such is the difficulty of commu- 
nication that it was buried before Brother 
Scurr had heard of its death. This kept 
many away. 

We now took to our boat again, and, 
after rowing three miles, thought we es- 
pied a beautiful place to dine ; but we 
had reckoned without our host. Mos- 
quitoes and their cousins, the black flies, 
were holding their annual camp-meeting, 
and about the time we landed were in 
the midst of a praise service. It was 



A SUNDAY ON SUGAR ISLAND. 1 83 

at once broken up on our arrival ; and, 
without even waiting for an invitation, 
they joined in our repast. This was con- 
siderably shortened, under the circum- 
stances, and we were glad to take to 
the water again. A word about the in- 
sect world in this region. They are very 
different from those farther south, being 
as active in the daytime as in the night. 
Perhaps, because of shorter seasons, they 
have to be at it all the time to get in 
their work. 

Another good pull at the oar and a 
little help from the wind brought us to 
our second stao^e, the Indian villa8:e. 
On the hillside stood the schoolhouse 
where we were to preach. The view from 
this spot was lovely. Lake George lay 
flashing in the sunshine, and beyond the 
great hills stretched as far as the eye 
could reach, and seemed in the distance 
to fold one over the other, like purple 
clouds, until both seemed mingled into 
one. 

We had a somewhat different audience 



1 84 MINUTE-MAN ON THE ERONTIER. 

this time, only four white men being pres- 
ent ; but all could understand English, 
except our old Indian friend of the morn- 
ing, who was again present, and for whose 
benefit the chiefs son arose after I was 
through, and interpreted the whole dis- 
course, save a little part which he said 
he condensed as the time was short. I 
was both astonished and delighted. The 
people told me he could do so with a 
sermon an hour long, without a break. 
Most of the company, as a rule, under- 
stand both languages, and keep up a 
keen watch for mistakes. It is a won- 
derful feat. The man's ofestures were 
perfect ; he was a natural orator. I 
asked him if he did not find it much 
harder to follow some men than others. 
He said, '' Ough ! Some go big way 
round before they come to it ; they aw- 
ful hard to follow." 

We took leave of our Indian friends 
with mingled feelings of hope as to what 
they might be, and of pity for what they 
were. 



A SUNDAY ON SUGAR ISLAND. 1 85 

I noticed a lot of new fence-rails around 
the fields on the Canada side, and re- 
marked that the people were industrious. 
"Oh, yes," said our brother; "because 
they burnt their fences last winter for 
firing." Sure enough ; what is the use 
of a fence in winter except to burn ? 
And then the wood is well seasoned. 
One church over there bought nearly all 
the members of the other with flour and 
pork; and if you ask an Indian in that 
region to-day to unite with your church, 
he says, " How much flour you give me 
to join ? " That's business. 

But it was getting late, and we had 
four miles' rowing yet before us. After a 
good hour's pull at the oars we reached 
the parsonage, just as the sun was set- 
ting in purple and gold behind the blue 
hills of Algoma. And there, as we sat 
watching the deepening twilight, brother 
Scurr told me some of the trials of mis- 
sionary life in that region. 

Often walking miles throueh the wet 
grass and low places, in the spring and 



1 86 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

fall. Standing in his wet shoes while 
preaching, and then returning — in the 
winter on snow-shoes, followinof the trail 
(for there are no roads) ; in the sum- 
mer, when the weather permits, by boat. 
When the snow was deep, and the wind 
was howling around his house, he had to 
leave his sick wife to keep his appoint- 
ments miles away, and was almost afraid 
to enter the house on his return, for fear 
she had left him alone with his little ones 
in the wilderness. It was twelve miles to 
the nearest doctor on the mainland ; and 
the only congenial companion for his wife 
was the missionary's wife on the Cana- 
dian side, a mile and a half away. This 
good sister knew something of the shady 
side of a missionary wife's life, as she 
lay for weeks hovering between life and 
death. 

One touchinor little incident brother 
Scurr told me that deeply affected me. 
One dark night Deacon John Sebastian 
came and told him his daughter, a fine 
girl of some sixteen years of age, was 



A SUNDAY ON SUGAR ISLAND. 1 8/ 

dying, and wished to see him. The 
mother was a Roman Cathohc ; but the 
daughter, who attended our church with 
her father, had accepted Christ for her 
Saviour, and now desired to partake of 
the Lord's Supper with us ere she de- 
parted. There in the farmhouse at mid- 
night the httle company, with the mother 
joining, partook of the sacrament. All 
church distinctions were forgotten, as the 
Protestant father and Catholic mother sat 
wnth clasped hands, and with tear-be- 
dimmed eyes saw their loved one go into 
the silent land. I left the next morning, 
promising to call again as soon as I 
could, and some time to hold meetings 
with them when the men were at home 
from fishing in the winter. 

I attended the dedication of a new 
church at Alba costing a little over 
$i,ooo, all paid or provided for, $137 
being raised on the night of dedication, 
in sums from two cents, given by a little 
girl, up to ten dollars, the highest sum 
given that night by one person. All our 



1 88 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

people in the rural districts are very poor, 
but often generous and self-denying. I 
know of one good mother in Israel who 
went without her new print dress for the 
summer in order to orive the dollar to 
the minister at Conference. Think of 
that dollar dress, my good sisters, when 
you are perplexed about whether you 
shall have yours cut bias, or gored, or 
Mother Hubbard style, or — well, I don't 
know much about styles ; but " think on 
these things." 



THE NEEDS OF THE MINUTE-MAN. 1 89 

XIX. 

THE NEEDS OF THE MINUTE-MAN. 

The needs of the' minute-man are as 
great as his field. If the army sent 
its minute-men to the front as poorly 
equipped for battle as our army of 
minute-men often are, it would be de- 
feated. The man needs, besides a home, 
a library and good literature up to date. 
Religious papers a year or two old make 
good reading, and biographies of good 
men are very stimulating. A full set of 
Parkman's works would be of inestimable 
value in keeping up his courage and help- 
ino- his faith. The smaller the field, the 
greater the need of good reading ; for on 
the frontier you miss the society of the 
city, and its ministers' meetings, and the 
great dailies, and all the rush of modern 
life that is so stimulating. And yet you 
find men of all conditions and mental 



1 90 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

Stature. A man who can get up two 
good sermons a week that will feed the 
varied types that he will meet at church 
needs" to be a orenius. 

When a man has access to all the o-reat 

o 

reviews, to fine libraries, public and pri- 
vate, and has the stimulation that comes 
from constant intercourse with others, be- 
sides an income that will allow him to 
buy the best books, when his services 
begin with forty-five minutes of liturgy 
and song, backed with a fine pipe-organ, 
when he enjoys two or three months vaca- 
tion into the bargain, he must be a very 
small specimen of a man if he cannot 
write a thirty-minute sermon; but when 
all a man's books can be put on one 
shelf, when his salary barely keeps the pot 
boiling, and he has fifty-two Sundays to 
fill, year in and year out, it is no wonder 
that short pastorates are the rule. When 
a man reaches his new field with no 
better start than many have, — the major- 
ity without a college training, and some 
without even a hi^h-school education, — it 



■THE NEEDS OF THE MINUTE-MAN. 191 

is not long before some of his parish will 
be asking a superintendent or presiding 
elder whether he cannot send them a eood 
man. " Our man here," he says, " is 
good, but he can't preach for shucks." 
The new man comes, and in three months 
he is in the same boat. And another 
comes; and after a little there is as much 
money spent for the sustaining of these 
families as would keep a good man. 

So it goes on, year after year. Secta- 
rian jealousies and sectarian strivings are 
as bad for the spiritual development of 
a country as saloons. So that we find 
to-day, in little towns of two thousand 
inhabitants, ten or eleven churches, all 
of them little starveling things, '' No one 
so poor to do them reverence ; " while the 
real frontier work is left with thousands 
of churchless parishes. 

If a man properly fitted out for his 
field could go at first, it would often stop 
the multiplication of little sects whose 
chief article of faith is some wretched 
little button-hook-and-eye or feet-washing 



192 MIiYUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

ceremony. In the beginning, such is the 
weakness of the new community, a union 
church is inevitable, there not being 
enoueh of a kind to oro around ; and 
nothing but a lack of Christianity will 
break that church up. 

For an example, here is a superintend- 
ent with a field a thousand miles by four 
hundred. He hears that a new town is 
started up in the mountains, a hundred 
and fifty miles from the railway. The 
stage is the only means of reaching it ; 
no stopping on the road but twenty min- 
utes for meals. After a tedious journey 
he reaches the place, and finds the usual 
conditions, — saloons, gambling-houses by 
the score, houses of every description in 
the process of erection. 

He goes up to the hotel man, and 
asks whether he can procure a place for 
preaching. He is given the schoolhouse. 
He announces preaching service, and be- 
gins. The people crowd the little build- 
ing; they sit or stand outside. Here are 
members of a dozen sects, and a solitary 



THE NEEDS OF THE MINUTE-MAN. 1 93 

feet-washer feeling lonely enough. The 
work crowds him ; and he wires to head- 
quarters at New York, — a strange tele- 
gram, — ''For the love of God, send me 
a man." Just as the telegram arrives, 
a man who has just come from England 
steps into the office. He Is examined, 
and asked whether he would like to go 
beyond the Rocky Mountains. He is 
the right stuff. " Anywhere," is the an- 
swer ; and as fast as limited express can 
take him he hurries to the new field. He 
finds a great crowd outside the school- 
house, a revival ofoinof on, and he has 
hard work to reach the minister. A 
church is organized, and it is to be a 
union church. What a calamity to have 
the brethren living together in unity! To 
have Christ's prayer answered that they 
may be one ! It's dreadful. But never 
mind ; the Devil, in the shape of sect 
that holds its deformity higher than 
Christ, soon makes an end of that ; so 
that the real-estate aeent advertises Pfood 
water, good schools, and good churches. 



194 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

The only way I see out of this anti- 
christian warfare is to send a well-balanced, 
well-paid man to start with. In the case 
just stated, the man was a good one, and 
held the fort, and managed skilfully his 
united flock. 

There are times when the best men will 
fail, as they do in business. The place 
promises great growth, and peters out ; 
but in these small towns, where the growth 
will never be large, your faithful man often 
does a mighty work. His flock are con- 
stantly moving away, but new ones are 
constantly coming ; and so his church is 
helping to fill others miles away, and it will 
not be until he is translated that we shall 
see how grand a man he was. 

I remember one man with his wife and 
family presenting himself one day to the 
Superintendent of Missions. He had just 
left a pretty little rose-covered parsonage 
in England. The only place open was a 
very cold and hard field. The forests had 
been destroyed by fire. The climate was 
intense, either summer or winter ; but he 



THE NEEDS OF THE MINUTE-MA lY. 195 

said, '' I will eo. I do not want to be a 
candidate." 

And off he went with his family. In 
the winter his bedroom was often so cold 
that the thermometer registered 20° below 
zero; and in spite of a big stove, the 
temperature was at zero in mid-day near 
the door and windows. One of his little 
ones born there was carried in blankets to 
be baptized in the little church when it 
was 2° below zero. I used to send this 
man small sums of money that were 
given me by kind friends. All the money 
promised on this field from three churches 
was twenty dollars a year, and part of that 
paid in potatoes. The last five dollars 
I sent him came back. He said he felt 
it would not be right to take it, as he 
had just accepted a call to a Presbyterian 
church. He felt almost like making an 
apology for doing so, as he said, '' My 
boys are growing up, and they can get 
so little schooling here that I am going 
to move where they can at least get an 
education." And then he was going to 



196 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

have seven hundred dollars a year. I sent 
the money back, saying that, as he was 
moving, he would probably* need It. The 
answer that came said he had just spent 
his last two cents for a postage-stamp 
when the five dollars came. 

I suppose there are at least ten thou- 
sand minute-men on the field to-day, 
working under the different home mis- 
sionary societies. Most of them have 
wives, and with their children will make 
an army of fifty thousand strong, the aver- 
age of whose salaries will not exceed five 
hundred dollars per year. And on this 
small sum your minute-man must feed, 
clothe, and educate his family ; and how 
much can he possibly use to feed his own 
mind ? — the man who ought to be able 
to stand in the front ranks at all times, in 
order to gain the respect of the commu- 
nity In which he should be the leader in 
all good works. 



IN THE MIXER'S CAMP. 1 9/ 

XX. 

THE MINUTE-MAN IN THE MINERS CAMP. 

When the first minute-men went to the 
Pacific slope, they had a long and dan- 
gerous voyage by sea round Cape Horn ; 
and on their arrival they had to live in a 
tent, pay a dollar a pound for hay, and 
a dollar apiece for potatoes and onions. 
To-day it is a very different thing to reach 
the mining-camps. No matter how high 
the mountains are, your train can climb 
them, doubling on itself, crossing or re- 
crossing ; or when the way is too steep, 
cogging its way up. 

Not long since I sat in a nicely fur- 
nished room taking my dinner. My host 
was talking through a telephone to a man 
miles away, and then, with a good-by, 
came back to the table. I said, " That is 
a great contrast with your first days here." 
He laughed, and said, '' Yes. The boats 



198 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

came up to where there are now great 
blocks of buildings ; and when I preached 
on Sunday afternoon, I always had a bull 
and a bear fight to contend with around 
the corner. I remember one time," he 
said, "when the bull broke loose, and ran 
down the street past where I was preach- 
ing. I saw at a elance that I must close 
the meeting, and so pronounced the ben- 
ediction ; when I opened my eyes not 
a living soul was in sight except my 
wife." 

At another time he approached two 
miners who were at work ; and he told 
them he was building a little church, and 
thought they might like to help. " Yes," 
said one of them, " you ain't the first man 
that's been around here a-beeein' fer a 
orphan asylum. You git ! " And as this 
was accompanied with a loaded revolver 
levelled at him, he obeyed. They were 
good men, but thought he was a gambler, 
as he had on a black suit. When they af- 
terwards found out that he was all right, 
they helped him. Gambling in all min- 



IN THE MINER'S CAMP. 1 99 

ing-camps was the common amusement. 
Some little camps had scarcely anything 
in sight but gambling-saloons, all licensed. 

This has continued even as late as 
July, 1895. The first preacher in Dead- 
wood stood on a box preaching when all 
around him were saloons, gambling- 
houses, and worse. He was listened to 
by many in spite of the turmoil all around 
him, and the collection was of gold-dust. 
It was accidentally spilled on the ground, 
when some good-hearted miner washed it 
out for him. The good man was shot 
the next day as he was going over the 
divide to preach in Lead City. The 
miners had nothing to do with it ; but 
they not only got up a generous collec- 
tion, but sent East and helped the man's 
family. 

Often a preacher has his chapel over a 
saloon where the audience can hear the 
sharp click of the billiard-balls, the ratde 
of the dice, and the profanity of the crowd 
below. One day a man who was rapidly 
killine himself with drink recited in a 



200 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

voice SO that all in the little church could 
hear him : — 

" There is a spirit above, 
There is a spirit below, 
A spirit of joy, 
A spirit of woe. 
Tlie spirit above 
Is the spirit divine, 
The spirit below 
Is the spirit of wine." 

It was hard work under such circum- 
stances to hold an audience. From the 
room where the man preached twelve 
saloons were in sight, and the audience 
could hear the blasting from the mines 
beneath them. The communion had to 
be held at night, as the deacons were in 
the mine all day. And yet those that did 
come were in earnest, I think. The very 
deviltry and awfulness of sin drove some 
men to a better life who under other con- 
ditions would never have gone to church. 
Many men were hanged for stealing horses, 
very few for killing a man ; while many a 
would-be suicide has been saved by the 
efforts of a true-hearted minute-man. No 



• AV THE MIXER'S CAMP. 20I 

one but a eenuine lover of his kind can do 
much eood amonor the miners. In no 
place is a man weighed quicker. The 
miners are a splendid lot to work with, 
and none more gallant and respectful to 
a eood woman in the world. 

The free and eas)' style of a frontiers- 
man is refreshing. You never hear the 
question as to whether the other half of 
your seat is engaged; although, if you 
are a minister in regulation dress, you 
will often have the seat to yourself. I re- 
member once, when travelling in a part 
of the country where both lumbermen and 
miners abounded, a biof man sat down 
by my side. He dropped into the seat 
like a bag of potatoes. After a moment's 
look at me, he said, "Live near here?" 

"Yes, at ." 

" Umph ! In business ? " 

" Yes ; I have the biggest business in 
the place." 

" I want to know. You ain't Wilcox?" 

" I know that." 

"Well, don't he own that mill?" 



202 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

'' Yes; but I have a bigger business than 
any mill." 

" What are you, then ? " 

'' I am a home missionary." 

The laugh the giant greeted this with 
stopped all the games and conversation in 
the car for a moment; but I was able to 
give him a good half-hour's talk, which 
ended by his saying, " Well, Elder, if I 
am ever near your place, I am coming 
to hear ye, sure." 

I was often taken for a commercial trav- 
eller, and asked what house I was travel- 
ling for. I invariably said, " The oldest 
house in the country," and that we were 
doing a bigger business than ever. "What 
line of goods do you carry?" the man 
would ask, looking at my grip. " Wine and 
milk, without money and without price. 
Can I sell you an order ? " 

At first the man would hardly believe 
I was a preacher. I remember talking 
for an hour on the boat with one young 
man, and after leaving him I began to 
read my Bible. He saw me reading, 



TN THE MINER'S CAMP, 203 

and said, "Oh! come off, now; that's 
too thin." 

''What is the matter?" I said. "Do 
you mean that the paper is thin ? It is ; 
but there's nothing thin about the read- 
mof. 

He at once whispered to the captain ; 
and after the* captain had answered him, 
he came over and apologized. " Why did 
you not tell me you were a minister ? " 

" I had no reason to," I said. " Did 
I say anything in my talk with you of an 
unchristian nature ? " 

"No; but I should never have known 
you were a minister by your clothes." 

" No ; and I don't propose that my tailor 
shall have the ministerial part of my make- 

up.-; 

Time was when every trade was known 
by the clothes worn, and the minister is 
about the only one to keep his sign up. 
It is just as well on the frontier for him 
to be known by his life, his deeds, and 
his words. The young man above had 
been a wide reader; and for two hours 



204 MINUTE-MAN ON THE ERONTIER. 

that night under the veranda of our hotel 
I talked with him, and afterwards had some 
very interesting letters from him. 

The town that same nieht was filled with 
wild revelry. It was on the eve of the 
Fourth of July, and newly sw^orn-in depu- 
ties sw^armed ; rockets and pistols were 
fired with fatal carelessness ; and yet 
amidst it all w^e sat and talked, so in- 
tensely interested was the man in regard 
to his soul. 

I close this chapter with a portion of Dr. 
McLean's sermon on the flowing well (he 
was the man our minute-man was talking 

o 

with by telephone mentioned in the first 
part of this chapter) wdiich will show how 
well it pays to place the gospel in our 
new settlement : — 

" The first instance of which I myself happen 
to have had some personal observation, is of a well 
opened thirty years ago. Fifteen persons met in a 
little house, still standing, in what was then a com- 
munity of less than fifteen hundred souls. They 
came to talk and counsel, for they were men and 
women in touch with God. They were considering 
the matter of a flowing well of the spiritual sort. 



IN THE MIXER'S CAMP. 205 

There was the valley, opportunity; and there was 
the lack of sufficient religious ministration. The 
moral aspect of the place could not be better sur- 
mised than by the prophets word, ' Tongue faileth 
for thirst.' 

" They consulted and prayed, and said, ' We'll 
do it ! ' They joined heart and hand, declaring, 
' Cost what it may, we'll sink the well ! ' And they 
did. But ah, it was a stern task. For many a day 
those fifteen and the few others who joined them ate 
the bread of self-denial. Delicately reared women 
dismissed their household help and did the work 
themselves. Enterprising, ambitious men turned 
resolutely away from golden schemes, and made 
their small invested capital still smaller. A few 
days later on (it will be thirty years the ninth of 
next December) eight men and seven women, 
standing up together in a little borrowed room, 
solemnly plighted their faith, and joyfully cove- 
nanted to established a church of Christ of the 
Pilgrim order. 

" What has been the outcome of that faith and 
self-denial } It has borne true Abrahamic fruit. 
There stands to-day, on that foundation, a church 
of more than eleven hundred members. It has 
multiplied its original seventeen by more than the 
hundred fold, having received to its membership 
one thousand nine hundred and fifty-six souls, of 
whom one-half have come upon confession. It is 
a church which is teaching to-day seventeen hun- 



206 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

dred in its Sunday-schools ; possesses an enrolled 
battalion of two hundred valiant soldiers of Chris- 
tian Endeavor, which maintains kindergartens and 
all manner of mission-industrial work ; and held the 
pledge, at a recent census, of thirteen hundred and 
twenty-two persons to total abstinence. It has a 
constituency of one thousand families. It reaches 
each week, with some form of religious ministration, 
two thousand five hundred persons, and has five 
thousand regularly looking to it for their spiritual 
supplies. To as many more, doubtless, does it an- 
nually furnish, in some incidental way, at least a 
cup of cold water in the Master's name. It is a 
church which has been privileged of God in its 
thirty years to bring forth nine more churches 
within the field itself originally occupied, and 
to lend a hand frequently with members, habit- 
ually with money in it, to four times nine new 
churches in fields outside its own. It is a church 
also, w.hich, with no credit to itself, — for, brethren, 
only sink the well, pipe it, keep an open flow, and it 
is God who, from his bare heights and the rivers 
opened on them, will supply the water, — it is a 
church which has enjoyed the great blessedness 
of contributing its part to every good thing in a 
growing city which has grown in the thirty years 
from fifteen hundred to sixty thousand souls. This 
church, having been enabled to help on almost every 
good thing in its State, is recognized to-day through- 
out a widely extended territory as an adjunct and 



IN THE MINER'S CAMP. 20J 

auxiliary of all good things in morals, politics, 
in charity, and the general humanities, — a power 
for God and good in a population which, already 
dense, is fast becoming one of the ganglion centres 
of American civilization. It is also laying its ser- 
viceable touch upon trans-oceanic continents and 
intervening islands of the sea. It has furnished 
ministers for the pulpit, and sent Sunday-school 
superintendents and Christian workers out over a 
wide area ; it has consecrated already six mission- 
aries to foreign service, and has two others under 
appointment by the board ; and as for wives to 
missionaries and ministers, brethren, you should 
just see those predatory tribes swoop down upon 
its girls ! 

" It is a true flowing well in the midst of a valley. 
Ah ! those fifteen who met thirty years ago next 
October made no mistake. They were within 
God's artesian belt. Their divining-rod was not mis- 
leading. Their call was genuine ; their aim uner- 
ring. They struck the vein. The flow of the rivers 
breaking out from bare heights did not disappoint 
them. And now behold this wide expanse of spir- 
itual fertility ! This church was not, in form, a 
daughter of the American Home Missionary So- 
ciety. Its name does not appear upon your family 
record, and yet, in the true sense, it is your daughter. 
In its infant days it sucked the breasts of churches 
which had sucked yours. Its swaddling bands 
you made. It was glad to get them even at 



208 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIEK. 

second hand. The other instance I have to quote 
is of but recent standing, — of not thirty years, but 
only three. 

" On the 26th of May, three years ago, a pastor in 
Central California was called five hundred miles 
into the southern part of the State to assist in or- 
ganizing a Pilgrim church. A good part of the 
proposing members being from his own flock, their 
appeal was urgent, and was acceded to. An infant 
organization of a few persons was brought together, 
and christened the Pilgrim Church of Pomona. 
The organization was effected in a public hall, 
loaned for the occasion ; the church's stipulated 
tenure of the premises expiring at precisely 3 p. m., 
in order that the room might be put in order for 
theatrical occupancy at night. The accouchment 
was therefore naturally a hurried one. The consti- 
tuting services had to be abbreviated. Among the 
things cast out was the sermon, which the visiting 
pastor from the north had come five hundred miles 
to preach. Well, sweet are the uses of adversity! 
Never, apparently, did loss so small gain work so 
great. On the lack of that initiatory sermon the 
Pilgrim Church of Pomona has most wonderfully 
thriven. The church was poor at the outset. It 
possessed no foot of ground, no house ; only a 
Bible, a dozen hymn-books, and as many zealous 
members. Over this featherless chick was spread 
the brooding wing of the American Home Mission- 
ary Society. 'It was a plucky bird,' said the wise- 



IN THE M/XEK'S CAMP. 209 

hearted pastor, already on the ground. ' Here's a 
case where the questionable old saw, " Half a loaf 
better than no bread," won't work at all. If this 
new well is to be driven, it must be driven to the 
vein. If there is to be but surface digging, let there 
be none. If the American Home Missionary society 
will supply us with six hundred dollars for the first 
six months, we'll make no promises, but we'll do 
the best we can.' Well, the G. O. S. — Grand Old 
Society — responded, and gave the six hundred for 
the desired six months. At the expiration of that 
period the Pilgrim Church of Pomona, located upon 
land and in a house of its own, bade its temporary 
foster-mother a grateful good-by ; and, as it did so, 
put back into her hand two hundred of the six 
hundred dollars which had been given. What has 
been the outcome ? That noble church, headed by 
a noble Massachusetts pastor, has become in the 
matter of home missions at least — but not in home 
missions only — the leading church of Southern 
California. It has to-day an enrolment of two 
hundred and twenty ; has contributed this year 
three hundred and fifty dollars to your society. 
Alert in all activities of its own, it is a stimulus to 
all those of its neighbors. It had not yet got for- 
mally organized — the audacious little strutling ! — 
before it had made a cool proposition to the hand- 
ful of Pilgrim churches then existino^ in Southern 
California for the creation of a college ; secured the 
location in its own town ; itself appointed the first 



2IO MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

board of trust ; and named it Pomona College. It 
never waited to be hatched before it began to crow ; 
and to such purpose that it crowed up a college, 
which now owns two hundred acres of choice land, 
has a subscription-list of twenty-five thousand dol- 
lars for buildings, besides a present building costing 
two hundred and five thousand dollars. It has in its 
senior class eleven students, in its preparatory de- 
partment seventy-one ; and in a recent revival in- 
terest numbers a goodly group of converts ; and, 
finally, the general association of Southern Califor- 
nia, at its meeting within a month, committed its 
fifty churches fully to the subject of Christian edu- 
cation, to the annual presentation of the advantages 
and claims of Pomona College, and to an annual 
collection for its funds. All this, brethren, out of 
one of your flowing wells in three years." 



THE SABBATH ON THE ERONTIER. 211 



XXI. 

THE SABBATH ON THE FRONTIER. 

We hear a good deal of talk about the 
American Sabbath, so that one would think 
it was first introduced here ; and, indeed, 
the American Sabbath is our own patent. 
Not but W'hat Scotland and rural England 
had one somewhat like it ; but the Amer- 
ican Sabbath par excellejice is not the 
Jewish Sabbath, or the European Sabbath, 
but the Sunday of Puritan New England, 
which is generally meant when we hear of 
the American Sabbath. But the American 
Sabbath of the frontier can never become 
the European Sabbath without getting 
nearer to the New England type ; for in 
Europe people do go to church in the 
morning, if they attend the beer-gardens 
in the afternoon. The Sabbath of the 
frontier has no church, and the beer-garden 
is open all day. 



212 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER, 

Some reader will wonder what kind of a 
deacon a man would make who worked on 
Sunday. Well, he might be better ; but, 
remember, that for one deacon who breaks 
the Sabbath, there are ten thousand who 
break the tenth commandment, which is 
just as important. The fact is, you must 
do the best you can under the circum- 
stances, and wait for the next generation 
to go up higher. It is no use finding fault 
with candles for the poor light and the 
smell of the tallow. There is only one 
way : you must light the gas ; and it, too, 
must go when electricity comes. You 
might as well expect concrete roads, 
Beethoven's Symphonies, and the Paris 
opera, as to have all the conditions of New 
England life to start with under such en- 
vironments. Man has greater power to 
accommodate himself to new conditions 
than the beasts that perish ; nevertheless, 
he is subject to them, at least for a time. 

I know some will be thinkine of the Pil- 
grim Fathers, staying in the little May- 
flower rather than break the Sabbath ; but 



THE SABBATH OiV THE FRONTIER. 213 

we must not forget, that, as a rule, the 
frontiers are not peopled with Pilgrim 
Fathers. It is true, the wildest settlers 
are not altogether bad ; for you could have 
seen on their prairie schooners within the 
last year these words, "In God we trusted, 
in Kansas we busted ; " which is much 
more reverent than *' Pike's Peak or bust," 
if not quite so terse. 

This is not meant for sarcasm. These 
words were written in a county that has 
been settled over two hundred and fifty 
years, and has not had a murderer in its 
jail yet, where the people talk as if they 
were but lately from Cornwall, where the 
descendants of iMayhew still live, — May- 
hew, who was preaching to the Indians 
before the saintly Eliot. 

We must remember, too, that the eood 
men who first settled at Plymouth could 
do things conscientiously that your fron- 
tiersman would be shocked at. Think, 
too, of good John Hawkins sailing about 
in the ship Jesus with her .hold full of 
negroes, and pious New Englanders sell- 



214 MINUTE-MAN ON THE ERONTIE 

ing slaves in DeerfielJ less than a hun- 
dred and ten years ago ; of the whipping- 
post and the persecuting of witches ; and 
that these good men, who would not break 
the Sabbath, often in their religious zeal 
broke human hearts. No livine man re- 
spects them more than I do. You cannot 
sing Mrs. Hemans's words, 

" The breaking waves dashed high," 

without the tears coming to these eyes ; 
and one sight of Burial Hill buries all hard 
thoughts I might have about their stern 
rule. They were fitted for the times they 
lived in, and we must see to it that we do 
our part in our time. 

In my first field I well remember being 
startled at a tiny girl singing out, " Hello, 
Elder ! " and on looking up there was a 
batch of youngsters from the Sunday- 
school playing croquet on Sunday after- 
noon. " Hello ! " said I ; and I smiled 
and walked on. Wicked, was it not? I 
ought to have lectured them ? Oh, yes ! 
and lost them. Were they playing a )^ear 



THE SABBATH ON THE FRONTIER. 21 5 

after? Not one of them. And, better 
still, the parents, who were non-church- 
goers, had joined the church. 

The saloons and stores were open, and 
doing a big business, the first year; but 
both saloons and stores were closed, side- 
doors too, after that. Some of the saloon- 
keepers' boys, who played base-ball on 
Sunday, were in the Sunday-school and 
members of a temperance society. These 
saloon-keepers, and men who were not 
church-members, paid dollar for dollar 
with the Christians who sent missionary 
money to support the little church ; and 
not only that, but paid into the benevo- 
lences of the church from five to twenty- 
five dollars. There is no possible way so 
good of getting men to be better as to get 
them to help in a good cause. I know 
men who w^ould not take money that came 
from the saloon ; but I did. I remembered 
the words, *' The silver and the gold are 
mine," and Paul's saying, '' Ask no ques- 
tion for conscience' sake." We miofht as 
well blame the Creator for growing the 



2l6 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

barley because of its being put to a bad 
use, as to blame a man for using the 
money because it came from a bad busi- 
ness. Men ought to use common sense, 
even in religious things. 

When a man hitches up his horse on 
Sunday morning and drives fifty miles that 
day and preaches four times, we admire 
his zeal. There are some who will not 
blame him if he hires a livery rig, who 
would condemn him if he rode on the 
street-cars or railway. I well remember 
a good man, who was to speak in a church 
a few miles away, saying to me, " How 
shall we get there?" I said, "The street- 
cars go right past the door." 

" Oh ! I can't ride in a street-car." 

''Why? Make you sick?" 

It never came into my head that the 
man meant he could not ride on Sunday 
in a street-car. 

" I will tell you," said he, '' what we 
will. do. I will get a livery rig." 

I was much amused, and bantered him, 
and said, — 



THE SABBATH ON THE FROXTIER. 21/ 

'' I don't know about breakinof the Sab- 
bath fifty per cent. I am willing to plead 
limited liability with a hundred others in 
the street-car." 

Just then a man drove up with a buggy 
who had been sent for us. It seemed 
to take a load off my friend's mind. 
Now, there are men who would condemn 
a man for this, and say he should walk ; 
and I know men who walk ten and 
twelve miles on Sunday. If that is not 
work I do not know what is. This 
month I saw an article in a paper con- 
demning the young people who had to 
ride on Sunday to reach their meeting. 
The writer would not have them travel, 
even in an emergency. I wonder when 
the Pilgrims would have reached us on 
that basis. It is a far cry from the May- 
flower to the Lucania. Is the Sabbath 
greater than its Lord ? I was told of 
one preacher who was so particular that 
he sent word that no appointment must 
be made for him that involved street- 
car or railway travel. So a horse was 



2l8 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

driven ten miles to fetch him, and ten 
miles to take him back. When the horse 
reached his stable that night he had 
travelled forty miles to keep this man 
from breaking the Sabbath. Who gave 
these brethren the right to work their 
horses this way, and break the Sabbath ? 
If Moses had a man stoned to death for 
gathering sticks on the Sabbath, what 
right have you to be toasting your shins 
over a register that your man-servant 
must keep going evenly or catch it? In 
short, what right has any man to tamper 
with one of the commandments to suit 
himself, and place the remainder higher 
than love to his neighbor ? 

So long as the frontier Sabbath is what 
it is, it will be lawful to do good on the 
Sabbath day. Far be it from me to un- 
dervalue the Sabbath. I value it highly, 
but I value freedom more. The man who 
rides in his carriao^e to church has no 
right to condemn my riding in the street- 
car, and he who rides in the street-car has 
no right to judge the man on the train. 



THE SABBATH ON THE ER ON TIER. 219 

" Who art thou that judgest another man's 
servant?" " One man esteemeth one day 
above another ; another esteemeth every- 
day ahke. Let every man be fully per- 
suaded in his own mind." '' Stand fast, 
therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ 
hath made us free, and be not entangled 
again with the yoke of bondage." 



220 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 



XXII. 

THE FRONTIER OF THE SOUTH-WEST. 

The South-west is different from all 
other parts of the countr}^ The Anglo- 
Saxon is everywhere else in the ascendant. 
Here the Latin races are dominant. It is 
astonishing to find so many oldest churches 
all over the country. The superlative is a 
national trait. We have either the oldest 
or the youngest, the greatest or the small- 
est, or the only thing in the world. How- 
ever, it is almost certain that the oldest 
church and house are to be found in Santa 
Fe. The Church of' San Miguel was built 
seventy years before the landing of the 
Pilgrims, and the house next to the 
church fifty years. It is the oldest set- 
tled, is the farthest behind, has the most 
church-members per capita, and is the 
most ignorant and superstitious part of 
the land. In one part Mormon ism holds 



THE FRONTIER OF THE SOUTH-WEST. 221 

sway. In the other, Roman CathoHcism 
of two centuries ago is still the prevail- 
ine reliofion. 

It is a curious fact ; but in this latter 
respect the North-east and the South-west 
almost join hands ; for Lower Canada sent 
us Old France, and the South-west re- 
mains Old Spain. Here, as a man travels 
through Western Texas, New Mexico, and 
Arizona, only his Pullman car, and es; 
pecially his Pullman porter, makes him 
realize that he is in America. In the 
eastern part of Texas the buzzards fill 
the air as they are hovering over the 
dead cattle. In the western part the 
dead cattle dry up and are blown away. 
Meat .keeps indefinitely. There are no 
flies there, few insects, and the flowers are 
almost odorless, perhaps on account of the 
lack of insect-life. The very butcher-signs 
look strange. Instead of the fat, meek ox 
on a sign, we have a mad bull charging a 
Spanish matador. 

Here comes a Mexican with a fifty-dol- 
lar hat on his head, and fifty cents would 



2 22 M/iVUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

almost buy the rest of his clothes. He 
marches by with the strut of a drum-major. 
The best streets and the finest houses are 
often not homes. The plains look as if 
they would not keep a cow alive ; and yet 
here in the South-west we find some of the 
finest grazing-lands in the world, although 
it takes twenty-five acres to feed a cow. 
But what of that? the acres are unlimited. 
The black-tailed antelope are seen running 
from your train ; while the prairie-dog sits, 
like all small things, barking impudently, 
or, with a few electric twists of his little 
tail he dives below, where a rattlesnake 
and an owl keep his house in order, i.e., 
keep the population down so that the 
progeny would not kill all the grass, and 
so starve at last ; with himself would cro 
the cattle ; so the economy of nature 
keeps up its reputation everywhere. As 
some have said, when salmon are scarce 
hens' eofes become dear ; for the otter 
takes to the land and kills the rabbits, 
and the weasel, finding his stores low, 
visits the hen-coops — and up goes the 
price of eggs. 



THE FRONTIER OF THE SOUTH-WEST 223 

The minute-man In the South-west has a 
ble field. He Is often hundreds of miles 
from his next church. He preaches to the 
cowboys one day, to the Digger Indians 
or the blanket variety the next. He Is off 
among the miners, and sometimes in less 
than four hours he must chanore from the 
cold mountain air to the heat which re- 
quires two roofs to the house In order to 
keep it cool enough. He eats steak that 
has come one thousand miles from the 
East, although ten thousand cattle are all 
about him. He passes a million cows, 
and yet has to use condensed milk for 
his coffee or go without. 

He finds himself in the midst of the 
grandest scenery on the continent. In his 
long journey he often finds himself sleep- 
ing on the plain outside the teepees of his 
red brother, rather risking the tarantulas, 
lizards, and rattlers that may come, than 
the thousands of smaller nuisances that 
are sure to come If he goes under cover. 
He Is in the midst of a past age ; and as 
he visits the pueblos, he would not be sur- 



224 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

prised to see De Soto come forth, so 
Spanish are his surroundings. The adobe 
building prevails everywhere, cool in sum- 
mer, warm in winter, and in this climate 
well nioh indestructible. 

The priesthood are centuries removed 
from those of the East. Here he will 
meet with men livinof in the Middle Ao-es, 
beatinor their backs with cactus until the 
blood streams, and often dying under 
self-inflicted blows. We often hear of 
America having no ruins, no ancient his- 
tory. This may be so in regard to time ; 
but in reorard to conditions we are in the 
time of Boadicea of the ancient Briton, 
and in the South-west are ruins of build- 
inofs that were inhabited when William 
was crowned at Westminster. So great are 
the States of the South-west that the coun- 
ties are larger than New Eno-land States ; 
and you may be stuck in a blizzard in north- 
ern Texas, while people in the southern 
portion are eating oranges out-doors with 
the oleanders for shade-trees. 

I will close this chapter with a descrip- 



THE FRONTIER OF THE SOUTH-WEST. 225 

tlon given me in part by the Rev. E. 
Lyman Hood, who was Superintendent of 
Missions in the South-west until he was 
broken down by his arduous toil. 

One evening he found himself at the 
opening of an immense canon, on the lofty 
tops of which the snow was perpetual. 
Sheltered beneath its mighty walls, flowers 
of semi-tropical luxuriance flourished, 
and birds of gorgeous plumage flitted 
here and there ; while humming-birds, like 
balls of metal, darted amonor the flowers, 
A little silver streamlet ran down the 
caiion until lost in the blue distance ; and 
here our minute-man stood lost in rev- 
erent admiration. The sun was going 
down in pomp of purple and gold ; and 
the little stream changed its colors with 
the clouds, until in a moment it became 
black ; a cold wind came down the canon, 
the flowers closed their petals, and with a 
twitter here and there the birds went to 
roost. And then our minute-man looked 
up aloft, where the sun still gilded the 
great canon's shoulders until they glowed 



226 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

like molten metal, and kissed the forehead 
of an Indian who stood like a statue wait- 
inor the sun's settinor. Another moment 
and it was gone, and our Indian stood like 
a silhouette against the sky, when he at 
once wheeled toward the east, and, stoop- 
ing, lit a fire ; then drawing his ragged 
blanket around him, prepared to w^atch 
all night until the sun came up in the east- 
ern horizon, watching for the return of his 
Saviour Montezuma. And thus far he has 
watched in vain. 

A strange fact, — a poor tribe still wait- 
ing and watching for a Saviour in a land 
where there are over twenty million church- 
members, some of whom ride past him in 
their palace-cars to take a palatial steamer, 
and travel thousands of miles to find a soul 
to save. Over twelve denominations striv- 
ing in Mexico to win souls, and scarcely a 
thine done for the hundreds of thousands 
of Mexicans in our own land, and over 
forty tribes of Indians. And all this In the 
year of our Lord 1895, 



DARK PLACES OF THE INTERIOR. 22/ 

XXIII. 

DARK PL'ACES OF THE INTERIOR. 

I WANT to picture out in this chapter 
one of the hardest fields the minute-man 
has to labor in. I think there are greater 
inequalities to be found in our land than 
in any other, at least a greater variety of 
social conditions. Times have chano-ed 
much in the last twenty-five years. The 
consolidatlnor of ereat business concerns 
has made a wide eulf between the em- 
ployer and employee such as never be- 
fore existed outside of slavery. 

It is not true to say that the rich are 
growing richer, and the poor poorer ; for 
the poor could not be poorer. There never 
was a time when men were not at starva- 
tion-point In some places. We have to- 
day thousands of men who never saw the 
owner of the property that they work up- 
on. There is a fearful distance between 



228 MIA^UTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

the eentlemen and ladles In their four- 
In-hand turnout and the begrimed men 
who come up into the dayhght out of our 
great coal-mines, or those who handle the 
heavy Iron ore. I have seen men whose 
hands could be pared like a horse's hoof 
without drawing the blood, who were go- 
ing back to Germany to stay, — men who 
had been lured over by the promise of 
big wages, who, as they said, averaged 
*' feefty cent a day." I have seen sixty 
and seventy men living in a big hut, with 
two or three women cooking their vege- 
tables In a great iron kettle, and dipping 
them out with tin ladles. I have seen 
little boys by the score working for a few 
cents a day, and four, five, and seven 
families living in one house, and where 
all the pay was store-pay, and did not 
average five dollars a week, and where 
it was not safe to walk at night, and 
murder w^as common, — and you could 
find within a few miles cities where there 
were men who would say that the whole 
of the above was a lie. 



DARK PLACES OF THE INTERIOR. 229 

When I first talked on these regions, I 
could think of nothing else ; and some 
good men advised me not to tell of what I 
had seen. It smacked too much of social- 
ism, they said. I remarked, " You will 
hear of starving, bloodshed, and riot from 
that region before long." And so they 
did. The State troops were called out 
more than once. And here in the midst 
of this misery our minute-man went. 
Before the mines were opened, a little 
stream of clear water flowed between 
green banks and through flowery meads ; 
cattle dotted the meadows, and peaceful 
farm-houses nestled under the trees. But 
all this was soon chanored. The ereen sod 
was turned up, the clear stream became 
a muddy, discolored torrent, and wretched 
little houses took the place of the farm- 
houses. Low saloons abounded. Our 
minute-man w^as warned that his life 
would be in danger. On the other hand, 
he was offered three times the salary he 
was getting as a missionary if he would 
become a foreman. But the man is one 



230 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

of the last of that noble army of pioneers 
that count not their life dear. 

When our man tried to find a place to 
preach, there was none save an old dilap- 
idated schoolhouse. The window-sashes 
were broken, the panels of the door gone. 
The place was beyond a little stream, 
which had to be crossed upon a log. It 
was nearly dark before his audience ar- 
rived. The women, much as they wanted 
to go, were ashamed of the daylight. 
Many of the young girls had on but one 
garment. The men were a rough-looking 
lot. The place was lighted with candles 
in lanterns, the flames of which fluttered 
with the draughts, and gutters of tallow 
ran down. What a contrast to the church 
a few miles away, where the seats were 
cushioned, and a quartet choir sang, "The 
Earth is the Lord's," with a magnificent 
organ accompaniment ! What a gulf be- 
tween these poor souls and those who 
came in late, not because of poor clothes, 
but because of fine ones ! And yet I sup- 
pose they did not perceive it, perhaps they 



DARK PLACES OF THE EXTERIOR. 23 I 

did not know. But it does seem to me 
that when men hear that ''The Earth is 
the Lord's," it ought to make them think 
how small a proportion of earth they will 
make when minHed with the dust from 
which they came. 

But to return to our meeting. Our 
man is not from the colleges, but is a rare 
man (don't misunderstand me. Nothing 
is so much needed to-day as w^ell-educated 
men ; and I am not one of those who 
think that it spoils a razor to sharpen it) ; 
and he has not spoken long before the tears 
fall fast, and many a poor fellow who once 
sang the songs of Zion comes home to his 
Father's house. Still, they tell our man it 
is not safe for him to come ; but he does ; 
and under great difficulties he builds a 
church and parsonage. And then he tries 
to have a reading-room. Naturally he 
thinks that the man who is making so 
much money out of the earth will help 
him. He offers twenty-five dollars, which 
our minute-man spurns. He is going to 
give double that out of his meagre sal- 



232 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

ary, and tells the man so ; but the man's 
excuse is that he pays four hundred 
dollars a year towards the church music. 
Think of that. And he pays to hear that 
"The Earth is the Lord's," and still does 
not hear. The little room is built and 
furnished without his help, and saves many 
a poor fellow from drink. 

Our man has several other places to 
preach in, each worse than the other. In 
one town it is on Sunday afternoon, but he 
has to wait for the room until the dance 
is over. In another town he builds a 
church ; and to this day may be seen the 
bullet-holes near the pulpit, wdiere men 
have shot at him, hoping to kill their 
best friend. As he is passing along the 
street one day with a companion, a man 
runs across the road from a saloon, 
plunges a knife into the heart of the 
man who is walkinor with our minute- 
man, and he drops dead in his tracks. 
Amid such scenes as this our hero still 
works. He has been the means of stop- 
ping more than one strike ; and one would 



DARK PLACES OF THE INTERIOR. 233 

think that the rich companies would at 
least give more than they do to help 
these men at the front, who w^ould make 
Pinkerton's men and State troops un- 
necessary. 

In the meantime the men are here. 
Can we expect that these men, coming 
from their huts on the Danube, — seeing 
our fine houses, the American working- 
men's children well clothed and attending 
school, — are going to be content ? Do 
we want them to be ? The worst thing 
that could happen to them and ourselves 
would be for them to be content with 
their present condition. No greater dan- 
ger could menace the Republic than 
thousands of Europeans coming here to 
live, and remaining in their present con- 
dition. We condemn them for coming 
and underworking our men ; and we con- 
demn them when they want more, and are 
bound to get it. 

Many say, " Keep them out." But there 
are several things in the way. Rich cor- 
porations, mine-ownerS; and railways are 



234 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

bound to get them. And would you keep 
the men from which we sprung" in over- 
crowded Europe, while we have a continent 
with but seventy millions ? Is there any 
real love in that which sends a missionary 
to Europe to save souls on the Don, that 
will not let their bodies live on the Hud- 
son ? Do we believe that "The Earth is 
the Lord's " ? Let me close this chapter 
with a quotation from Roger Williams's 
letter to the Town of Providence : — 

" I have only one motion and petition 
which I earnestly pray the town to lay to 
heart, as ever they look for a blessing 
from God on the town, in your families, 
your corn and cattle, and your children 
after you. It is this, that after you have 
got over the black brook of some soul 
bondage yourselves, you tear not down 
the bridge after you, by leaving no small 
pittance for distressed souls that come 
after you." 



THE DANGEROUS NATIVE CLASSES. 235 

XXIV. 

THE DANGEROUS NATIVE CLASSES. 

We hear much about the danorerous 

<_> 

foreigners that come to us, but httle about 
the dangerous native. There is not a 
type, whether of poverty or ignorance, 
but what we can match it. Leaving out 
the negro, we have over ninety per cent 
Anglo-Saxon in the South. Here we find 
a strange lot of paradoxes, — the most 
American, the most ignorant, the most 
religious, the most superstitious, and the 
most lawless. Take the lowest class of 
Crackers, and we have the whole of the 
above combined, with millions of moun- 
tain whites to match. Yet in this same 
South land are the most gentlemanly, and 
the most lady-like, and the most hospit- 
able people in the country. The Cracker 
classes are descendants of the English, 
but what kind of English ? The offscour- 



236 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

ings of prison and dockyards, sent over 
to work on the plantations before slave 
labor was introduced. 

The mountain whites are the descen- 
dants of the Scotch-Irish. As many 
people seem to think this means a Scotch 
parent on one side and an Irish upon the 
other, it may be well to state that the 
Scotch-Irish are the descendants of Scotch 
people who immigrated to Ireland. But 
it ought not to be forgotten that the 
mountain whites are the descendants of 
Scotch-Irish of two centuries ago, a very 
different people from the Scotch-Irish of 
to-day. Here in the mountains we find 
some three millions, often without schools, 
and waiting sometimes for years for a 
funeral sermon after the person has been 
buried. Towns can be found over seventy 
years old organized with a court-house 
and no church. 

'' Yes," they say, '' the Methodists 
started one some years ago ; but the 
Baptists threw the timber into the Cum- 
berland, and sence then we ain't had 
no church." 



THE DANGEROUS NATIVE CLASSES. 237 

Here one of our minute- men had two 
horses shot under him, and another mis- 
sionary was nearly killed. 

Here you may find families of twenty 
and more, living in a wretchedly con- 
structed house, on bacon and corn-meal, 
hoe-cakes, and dodgers. I started once 
to stay over night in one of these houses. 
As we came near to the place, I found 
that my host was a school-teacher. He 
had taught twenty-two schools. He meant 
by this that he had taught that many 
years. The kitchen was as black as smoke 
could make it ; the butter was stringy, 
caused by the cows eating cotton-seed ; 
and my seat a plank worn smooth by 
use, with legs which stuck up through 
it, which would have been better had 
they been worn more. I suppose in some 
way I involuntarily showed my feelings ; 
for the woman noticed it, and said, '' Yer 
oughter put up with one night what we 
uns have ter all the time." 

I said ''That's the trouble; I could 
when I got used to it." 



238 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

The room I slept in had a hole in the 
end that you could drive a span of horses 
through. It had been left for a chimney. 
As I found out that the day before a 
rattlesnake had come into the house, and 
the good woman had to defend herself 
with the fire-poker, I did not sleep so 
well as I might. The possibility of a 
rattler in the dark, and no poker handy, 
filled me with uneasy thoughts ; but as 
people get up with the sun, the time 
passed, and I was glad to get back to 
civilized life. 

I noticed that the cotton was ridged 
up with concave rows of earth, which was 
covered with rank weeds. This was done 
to keep the water from running off too 
quickly. I asked whether sage would not 
hold the ridges as good as weeds. " Oh, 
yes! " they said, and it brought a dollar 
a pound ; but they had never thought 
of that. 

Some of the States do not have seventy 
school-days in the year ; and the whole 
South to-day has not as many public 



THE DANGEROUS NATIVE CLASSES. 239 

libraries as the State of Massachusetts. 
A man needs perfect health to enjoy some 
of the pastoral work which he must do 
if he intends making a success amonof the 
mountain whites. One thing should never 
be forgotten. The poor whites of the 
mountains were loyal to the Union, and 
out from this type came the greatest 
American we have had, Abraham Lincoln. 

Here, then, is plenty of material to work 
on, — families bie enoueh to start a small 
church, and who do not send to England 
for pug-dogs for lack of progeny. Here 
is the rich fields, and here must the race 
be lifted before the millions of blacks 
can have a chance. Education must be 
pushed ; and then will come a period of 
scepticism, for this people are fifty years 
behind the times. 

Several people were sitting on a large 
veranda ; and one man, a preacher lately 
from Texas, was telline us of his visit. 
Among other things he spoke of the 
cyclone-pits, and said, " Seems to me, 
brother, a man can't have much faith in 



240 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

God who would go Into a pit. I would 
not ; would you ? " 

"No," replied mine host. "Men seem 
to me to be losing faith. I once raised 
a woman up by prayer that three doctors 
had given up. Aunt Sally, have ye any 
of that liver Invio-orator ? I kind of feel 
as If I needed some." 

Here was a man who had prayed a 
woman out of the jaws of death, calling 
for liver medicine. None of them seemed 
to see the Incongruity of It. One good 
old deacon that I knew horrified his 
pastor, who was a strong temperance 
man, by furnishing the communion with 
rye whiskey. The old • man meant all 
right ; but he had neglected to replenish 
the wine, and thought something of a 
spirituous nature was needed, and so 
brought the whiskey. 

It Is a fact worth notlno-, that we have 
to-day, In the year 1895, nillllons of men 
living In conditions as primitive as those 
of the eighteenth century, while In the 
same land we are bulldlnor houses which 



THE DANGEROUS NATIVE CLASSES. 24 1 

are lighted and heated with electricity; 
that some men worship in houses built 
of loes, without el^ss windows, and others 
worship in buildings that cost millions ; 
that in the former case men have lived 
in this way for over two hundred years, 
and the latter less than fifty since the 
Indian's tepee was the only dwelling in 
sight ; that to-day may be seen the prairie 
schooner drawn by horses, oxen, or mules, 
and in one case a horse, a cow, and a 
mule, the little shanty on wheels, the man 
sitting in the doorway driving, and his 
wife cookino- the dinner. But so It is. 
We have all the varieties of habitation, 
from the dugout of the prairie to the half- 
million summer cottage at Bar Harbor ; 
and from a single Indian pony, we have 
all kinds of locomotion, up to the vesti- 
buled palace on wheels. 

That I may not seem to be over stat- 
ing the condition of the mountain whites, 
and the dangers among our own people, 
I close with a quotation from Dr. Smart's 
Saratoo-a address : — 



242 MINUTE-AIAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

" Let me tell you of just one experiment of let- 
ting a people alone, and its result. Shall we trust 
that American institutions and American ideas, 
that the press and schools, will ultimately American- 
ize them ? In the eastern part of Kentucky, in 
the western part of North Carolina and West Vir- 
ginia, there is a section of country about the size 
of New Hampshire and New York, — one of the 
darkest spots on the map of the South. The 
people living there have been there for over a 
hundred years, and are of Scotch-Irish extraction. 
Whole counties can be found in which there is 
not a single wagon-road. Most of the houses are 
of one story, without a window, or only a small 
one ; and the door has to be kept open to let in the 
light. I have it from good authority that when the 
first schoolmistress went there to teach, she stipu- 
lated that she should have a room with a window in 
it, and a lock to the door. Very few of the peojDle 
can read or write. They have no newspapers, no 
modern appliances for agriculture, no connection 
with the world outside and around them. This 
is the land of the ' moonshiner.' They love whis- 
key, and so they manufacture it. The pistol and 
bowie-knife are judge and sheriff. Bloodshed is 
common, and barbarism a normal state of society. 
These men were not slaveholders in the times be- 
fore the war. They were as loyal to the Union as 
any others who fought for the old flag, and they 
served in the Union army when they got a chance. 



THE DANGEROUS NATIVE CLASSES. 243 

When Bishop Smith in a large and influential meet- 
ing spoke of them, he touched the Southern and 
Kentucky pride, especially when he pointed out 
what a moral and spiritual blot they were upon 
the South. Now, why are they there a hundred 
years behind us in every respect ? Why are they 
sunk so low ? Simply because they have been let 
alone. They are just as much separated from this 
land, without any share in its marvellous progress, 
as if a Chinese wall had been built around them. 
They have been let alone ; and American institu- 
tions, American schools, and the American press, 
have flowed around them and beyond them 
without effect." 



244 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

XXV. 

CHRISTIAN WORK IN THE LUMBER-TOWN. 

Until a few years ago I knew little 
or nothing of mill-towns or lumber-camps. 
I had seen a saw-mill that cut its thou- 
sand feet a day when running, and it 
was generally connected with some farm 
through which ran a stream. It was a 
very innocent affair. But in 1889 I saw 
for the first time the orreat forests of 
pine, and became acquainted with part 
of the immense army of lumbermen. 
Michigan alone had at that time some 
forty thousand ; Wisconsin has as many ; 
Georeia, Alabama, and Louisiana are now 
engaged in a vast work ; and when we 
add the ofreat States of Oreo-on and 
Washington, with their almost illimitable 
forests, we feel that we are speaking 
within bounds when we say an immense 
army. 



WORK IN THE LUAIBER-TOWN. 245 

The one great difficulty of the problem 
is the transitory character of the work — 
like Count Rumford's stoves, If they could 
only have been patented and money made 
out of them, every house would use them ; 
so if the lumber villao^e had come to 
stay, many a church would have gone In 
and built. But more than once a man 
in authority has said, " Oh, I have looked 
that field over, and It won't amount to 
much." No one , who has not had ex- 
perience in the field can form any ade- 
quate idea of its vastness or its crying 
needs. The one great ' trouble of the 
whole question is the massing of so many 
men away from the softening influence 
of wife and mother. It Is unnatural ; and 
nature's laws, as sacred as the Decalogue, 
are broken in unnatural crimes, and sins 
unknown to the common run of men. 

The lumber business may be divided 
Into three distinct classes of workers, — 
the mill-men, the camp-men, and the 
river-men. The last are the smallest 
company, but the hardest to reach. They 



246 MINUTE-MAN ON THE ERONTIER. 

flit from stream to river, from the river 
to tlie lake, from scenes of sylvan beauty 
to the low groggery — and worse. Their 
temporary home is often made of black- 
ened logs papered with Police Gazettes, 
which come in vast numbers, and form 
the largest part of their not very select 
reading. Books of the Zola type, but 
without their literary excellence, are 
legion. Good books and good literature 
would be a boon in these camps. 

To give you an idea of the rapid march 
of the lumber-camp, come with me into 
the primeval forest. It is a winter day. 
The snow is deep, and the lordly pines 
are dressed like brides in purest white ; 
one w^ould think, to look at their pen- 
dent branches, that Praxiteles and all 
his pupils had worked for a century in 
sculpturing these lovely forms. Not a 
sound is heard save our sleiMi-bells, or 
some chattering squirrel that leaps lightly 
over the powdery snow ; a gun fired 
would bring down a harmless avalanche. 
It is a sight of unsurpassed beauty in 



WORK IiV THE LUMBER -TO WX. 247 

nature's privacy ; but alas, how soon the 
change ! 

An army of brawny men Invade the 
lovely scene. Rude houses of logs are 
quickly erected ; and men with axe and 
saw soon change the view, and w^ith 
peavey and cant-hook the logs are loaded 
and off for the rollway. Inside the largest 
house are bunks, one above another ; two 
huge stoves with great iron cylinders, one 
at each end, give warmth ; while in pic- 
turesque confusion, socks and red macki- 
naws and shirts hang steaming by the 
dozens. There is a cockloft, where the 
men write their letters, and rude benches, 
where they sit and smoke and tell yarns 
till bedtime. In a few weeks at the far- 
thest the grand old forest is a wreck ; a 
few scrubby oaks or dwindling beech-trees 
are all that are left. The buildings rot 
down, the roofs tumble in, and a few 
camp-stragglers trying to get a living out 
of the stumpy ground are all that are 
left ; and solitude reigns supreme. 

On stormy days hundreds of the men 



248 MINUTE-MAIV ON THE FRONTIER. 

eo into the nearest villaofe, and sin revels 
in excess. In many a small town, mothers 
call their little ones in from the streets, 
which are soon full of men drunken and 
swearing, ready for fight or worse. At 
such times they hold the village in a 
reign of terror, and often commit crimes 
of a shocking nature, and no officer dares 
molest them. A stranger coming at such 
a time would need to conduct himself very 
discreetly or he would get into trouble. A 
volume might be filled with the outrageous 
thines done in these small lumber-towns. 
Ireland is not the only place that suffers 
from absentee landlords. 

The condition of the children is pitiable, 
brought up in an atmosphere of drunk- 
enness and debauchery ; swearing as natu- 
ral as breathing ; houses packed so closely 
that you can reach across from one window 
to another. The refuse is often emptied 
between the houses ; diseases of all kinds 
flourish, and death is ever busy. Eight 
or ten nationalities are often found in 
these towns, — men who cannot spell 



WORK IN THE LUMBER-TOWN. 249 

their names, and men who went to St. 
Paul's and admired Canon Liddon, or 
New York men that went to Beecher's 
church. 

Here a house which cost less than a 
hundred dollars, and inside of it an organ 
costing one hundred and twenty-five dol- 
lars, and a forty-dollar encyclopaedia. The 
next house is divided by stalls like a 
stable, wdth bed in one, stove in another, 
and kitchen in the third. With a popu- 
lation as mixed as this, and in constant 
flux, what, you ask, can the church do ? 
I answer, much, very much, if you can 
only get a church there ; but when the 
church which gives much more than any 
other gives but a quarter of a cent per 
day per member, is it any wonder that hun- 
dreds of churchless lumber-towns call in 
vain for help from the sanctuary? Some 
small villages can be found where every 
family is living in unlawful relations. 

Now, remember this, the lumberman is 
made of the same clay that we are, and it 
is his environment that bringrs to the front 

o 



250 MINUTE-MAN ON THE ERONTIER. 

the worst that is in him. He is reached 
by practical Christianity as easily as any 
other man. The shame and reproach be- 
long to us for neg-lecting him, and there 
is no other way that we so dishonor him 
whom we call Master as to say his com- 
mands are not practicable. Is it asking 
too much from the rich men who get their 
money by the toil of these men, that out 
of their millions they should spend thou- 
sands for the moral welfare of those who 
make them rich ? And yet too often they 
do not even know their own foremen, and 
in many cases have never visited the 
property they own. 

I once asked a rich lumber-man for 
a subscription for missions, saying I was 
sorry he was not at the church when I 
took up my collection. " Jinks ! I am 
glad I was not there," he said ; "I gave 
aw^ay ten dollars Saturday night." 

Now, this man had been cutting off 
from his land for thirty years, and had 
just sold a quarter of a million dollars' 
worth of it, and still had land left. But 



WORK IN THE L UMBER - TO I FA '. 2 5 I 

on the other hand, be It known that 
the men in these villao^es who make no 
profession of rehgion actually give dollar 
for dollar with the Christian church- 
members to sustain the frontier churches. 
Saloon-keepers, and often Roman Cath- 
olics, help to support the missionary 
church. 

The mission churches of the lumber 
regions are like springs in the desert, 
but for which the traveller would die on 
his way; and thousands of church-mem- 
bers scattered from ocean to ocean were 
born of the Spirit in some one of these 
little churches that did brave w^ork in a 
transient town. 

To do work in these places aright, one 
must drop all denominational nonsense, 
— be as ready to pray and work with 
the dying Roman Catholic as with a 
member of his own church, and do as 
I did, — lend the church building to the 
priest, because disease in the town would 
not permit of using the private houses 
at the time, and so help to fill up the 



252 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

gap between us and the old mother 
that nursed us a thousand years. 

In every new town, In every camp, 
should be a standing notice, ''No cranks 
need apply." 

Here is a brawny man who does not 
like the church. He hates the name of 
preacher, and threatens that he had bet- 
ter not call at his house. Scarlet fever 
takes his children down. The despised 
preacher, armed with a basket of good 
things, raps at the door. Pat opens it. 
" Good-morning, Pat. I heard your little 
ones were sick, and my wife thought your 
wife would have her hands full, and she 
has sent a few little things — not much, 
but they will help a little, I hope." 

The tears are In Pat's eyes. ^' Come 
in. Elder, If you are not afraid, for we 
have scarlet fever here." 

'' That Is the very reason I came, my 
boy ; " and Pat is won. The very man 
that swore the hardest because the elder 
was near, now says, "Don't swear, boys ; 
there's the elder." 



WORK IN THE LUMBER-TOWN. 253 

Yes ; and when men have heard that 
the new preacher has helped in the house 
stricken with smah-pox or typhoid, he has 
the freedom of the village, or the camp, 
and is respected. And so the village 
missionary does some good in the mill- 
town. But what is one man amoncr so 
many? See this little place with less than 
five hundred population. Two thousand 
men come there for their mail, and the 
average distance to the next church is 
over twenty miles ; and one man is totally 
inadequate to the great work before him. 

These villages and camps ought to have 
good libraries, a hall well lighted, inno- 
cent amusements, lectures, and entertain- 
ments, and in addition to this, an army 
of men carrying good books and visiting 
all the camps; and there is nothing to 
hinder but the lack of money, and the 
lack of will to use it in those who have 
abundance. I lately passed through a 
lumber-town of seven > thousand inhabi- 
tants. Four or five millionnaires lived 
there. One had put up an $80,000 train- 



254 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

Ing-school, another a memorial building 
costing $160,000. This is the other 
extreme. But up to date the lumber- 
regions have been shamefully neglected, 
and thousands of boys and girls are 
growing up to drift to our great cities 
and form the dangerous classes, fitted for 
it by their training. It is better to clear 
the water-sheds than to buy filters, and 
the cheapest policeman of the city is the 
missionary in the waste places of our 
land. 



TIVO KINDS OF FRONTIER. 255 

XXVI. 

TWO KINDS OF FRONTIER. 

Some years ago it is said that a man 
lost his pig, and in searching for it he 
found it by hearing its squeahng. The 
pig had fallen in a hole; and in getting 
it out, the man saw the rich copper 
ore which led to the opening of the 
Calumet and Hecla mines, and more re- 
cendy the Tamarack. More ore per ton 
goes into the lake from the washing than 
comes out of most mines. So rich is 
this ore that very few fine mineral speci- 
mens are found in the mines. Millions 
of money have been expended in devel- 
oping them, and millions more have come 
out of them. 

With such richness one would expect 
to find the usual deviltry that abounds in 
mining regions ; but such is not the case. 
In the early days, the mines were worked 



256 MINUTE-MAN ON THE ERONTIER. 

on Sunday In the Keweenaw region ; but 
through the resokite stand of two Scotch- 
men, who would not work on Sunday, the 
work was stopped on Saturday night at 
twelve o'clock, and resumed again Monday 
at twelve a.m. And this was found to be 
a benefit all round, as It generally Is. 
I knew of a salt-well wdiere the man 
thought It must be kept going all the time ; 
but one Sunday he let It rest, and found 
that, Instead of coming up In little spits, It 
accumulated, so that, as he said, It came 
''ker-plump, ker-plump." 

When the little church was first started 
In Calumet, the projectors of It were asked 
how much money they would want from 
the society to help them. The answer 
was, a check for two hundred dollars for 
home missions. Knowing this, I was not 
surprised to find good churches, good 
schools, good society, a good hotel, and 
as good morals as you can find any- 
where. Not a drop of liquor Is sold In 
Calumet. This shows what may be done 
by starting right ; and there Is no occa- 



TWO AYiVDS OF FRONTIER. 257 

sion for a mining-camp to be any worse 
except through criminal neglect of the 
owners. 

We pass on to the new mines farther 
west, and what do we find? Saloons 
packed twenty in a block, dance-houses 
with the most decrradine" attachments, 
scores of young lives sacrificed to man's 
lust, the streets dangerous after dark, 
and not pleasant to be on at any time. 
The local newspaper thus heralded a 
dog-fight at the theatre, "As both dogs 
are in good condition, it will prove one 
of the most interesting fights ever seen 
on this range." 

Here is the copy of an advertisement : 
" At the Alhambra Theatre. Prize-fight, 
thirty rounds or more. Prize, $200,00. 
Don't mistake this for a hippodrome. 
Men in fine condition. Plucky. Usual 
price." 

Here is another: ''Saturday, Sunday, 
and Monday, balloon ascension. A lady 
from the East will go up hanging by her 
toes. At a great height she will drop 



258 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

deeds of lots, the lucky possessor only to 
write his or her name to own the lot. 
Persons coming from a distance, and buy- 
ing lots, will have railroad money refunded 
Men leaving work, and buying, their wages 
paid. Everybody come and have a good 
time. Remember the date's Saturday, 
Sunday, and Monday." 

Here pandemonium reigned. What a 
place to raise a family ! Thousands of 
little children \\ere growing up under these 
awful conditions. I have gone up the 
lake more than once when innocent young 
girls were on the boat, expecting to find 
places at the hotel, only to meet with 
temptation and ruin ; some committing 
suicide, some becoming more reckless 
than the brutes that duped them. 

The harbor could be reached only by 
daylight, and with vessels of light draft ; 
and no sooner were they unloaded than 
they steamed off again, not to return for 
a week. Thus there was no way for 
these unfortunate girls to get back if they 
wished, for it was a dense forest for thirty 



TIFO AVXnS OF FROXTIER. 259 

miles to the nearest railway point , in the 
meanwhile, worse than death came to 
those who fell into the clutches of such 
fiends in human shape. 

One man, the chief owner there, threat- 
ened the bold rascals ; but they said they 
would build their house upon a raft and 
defy him. He said, '' I will cut you 
loose." They snapped their fingers at 
him, burnt his hotel, and shot him. Did 
this go on in the dark ? No ; the Chi- 
cago and Minneapolis and St. Paul's news- 
papers wrote it up. I spoke of it until 
warned I must not tell such awful things : 
it would be too shocking-. 

Into such awful places our minute- 
man goes, and takes his family too. It 
is hard work at first, but little by little 
sin must give way before righteousness. 
It is stranee that Christian men and 
women can draw incomes from these 
mines, and feel no duty towards the 
poor men who work for them. I met 
one such man upon the steamer coming 
from Europe. He had been over twice 



26o MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER 

that season. He had made his thou- 
sands, and was going back with his 
family to travel In Egypt, and leave his 
children with their nurses at Cairo. 

He admitted everything I told him 
about the condition of things on his own 
property ; and in answer as to whether 
he would help, said, '' No ; it's none of 
my funeral." How any man could walk 
those streets, and see fair young girls 
drunk at nine a.m., and in company 
with some of the worst characters that 
ever disgraced humanity, and not feel his 
obligations to his Lord and fellow-man, 
is more than I can understand. 

The awful cheapness of human life, 
the grim jokes upon the most solemn 
things, could only be matched in the 
French Revolution. I saw in one store, 
devoted to furniture and picture-frames, 
a deep frame w^th a glass front, and in- 
side a knotted rope, and written under- 
neath, *' Deputy-sheriff's necktie, worn by 

for murdering Mollie " on such 

a date. This was for the sheriff's parlor. 



TJVO KINDS OF FRONTIER. 26 1 

Hard times have made a great change 
snice I walked those streets. The roar 
of traffic has given place to the howl 
of hungry w^olves that have prowled 
among the deserted shanties in midday 
in search of food ; and the State has 
had to supply food and clothing to the 
poor, while my man, who had made his 
thousands, was studying the cuneiform 
inscription, in Egypt. It ought to make 
him think, when he sees the mummies 
of dead kings being shipped to England 
to raise turnips, that some day he will 
have a funeral all his own. 



262 MINUTE-MAN ON THE ERONTIER. 



XXVII. 

BREAKING NEW GROUND. 

" TJiis is the forest primeval." 

A GRAND sight is the forest primeval 
when the birds fill all its arches with song, 
or we sweep through them to the music 
of sleigh-bells. A pleasant sight is the 
farmer, surrounded by his wife and chil- 
dren, with well-kept farm, ample barns, 
and well-fed stock. But what wild desola- 
tion once reiofned where now these fine 
farms are seen ! The great trees stretched 
on for hundreds of miles. The hardy set- 
tler came with axe and saw and slow-paced 
oxen, cleared a little space, and built a 
log hut. For a little time all goes well ; 
then ' thistles, burdocks, mulleins, and 
briers come to pester him and increase his 
labors. Between the blackened log-heaps 
fire-weeds spring up. The man and his 
wife erow old fast. Ao^ue shakes their 



BREAKING NEW GROUND. 263 

confidence as well as their bodies. Schools 
are few, the roads mere trails. 

Then a village starts. First a country 
store ; then a saloon begins to make its 
pestilential influence felt. The dance 
thrives. The children o-row up strone, 
rough, Ignorant. The justice of the peace 
marries them. No minister comes. The 
hearts once tender and homesick, In the 
forest grow cold and hardened. At fu- 
nerals perhaps a godly woman offers 
prayer. Papers are few and poor. Books 
are very scarce. In winter the man is far 
off, with his older boys, in the lumber- 
camps, earning money to buy seed, and 
supplies for present wants. The woman 
pines in her lonely home. The man breaks 
down prematurely. Too many of these 
pioneers end their days In Insane asy- 
lums. It is the third oreneration which 
lives comfortably on pleasant farms, or 
strangers reap that whereon they bestowed 
no labor. 

This may seem too dark a picture. Song 
and story have gilded the pioneer life so 



264 MIiVUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

that its realities are myths to most people. 
It is better when a colony starts with 
money, horses, books, etc. ; but it is hard 
enough then. Few keep their piety. I 
visited a community where nearly every 
family were church-members in their early 
homes ; but, after twenty years, only one 
family had kept up the fire upon the altar. 
It is hard to break up such fallows. How 
different had a minister gone with them, 
and a church been built ! 

The missionary has different material 
altoo^ether to work on in the natural born 
pioneer. I visited one family which had 
a black bear, two hounds, some pet squir- 
rels, cats, and a canary ; over the fire- 
place hung rifles, deer-horns, and other 
trophies of the chase. The man was get- 
ting ready to move. At first his nearest 
neighbors were bears and deer ; but now 
a railway had come, also schools and 
churches. He said, '' 'Tain't like it was 
at fust ; times is hard ; have to go miles 
for a deer ; folks is getting stuck up, wear- 
ing biled shirts, getting spring beds and 



BREAKING NEW GROUND. 265 

rockers, and then ye can't do nothin' but 
some one is making a fuss. I shall cl'ar 
out of this ! " 

And he did, burying himself and family 
in the depths of the woods. The home- 
steader often takes these deserted places, 
after paying a mere trifle for the improve- 
ments. 

Homesteaders are numerous, generally 
very poor, and are apt to have large fami- 
lies. One man, who had eight hundred 
dollars, was looked upon as a Rothschild. 
Many families had to leave part of their 
furniture on the dock, as a pledge of pay- 
ment for their passage or freight-bill. But, 
homesteaders or colonists, all must work 
hard, be strong, live on plain fare, and 
dress in coarse clothing. The missionary 
among these people must do the same. 
A good brother told me that, on a mem- 
orable cold New Year's Day, he went into 
the woods to cut stove-wood, taking for his 
dinner a large piece of dry bread. By 
noon it was frozen solid; but, said he, 
" I had good teeth, and it tasted sweet." 



266 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

Another lived without bread for some 
time, being thankful for corn-meal. Those 
who live far from the railways are often 
brought to great straits, through stress of 
weather and the wretched roads. Lit- 
tle can be raised at first ; the work must 
be done in a primitive way. 

As it is with the farmer, so it is with 
the missionary. The breaking of new 
ground is hard work. Everything at first 
seems delightful. The people are glad, 
" seeing they have a Levite for their 
priest." They promise well. The minis- 
ter starts in with a brave heart, and com- 
mences to underbrush and cut down the 
giant sins that have grown on such fat 
soil. But as they come down, he, too, 
finds the thistles and mulleins ; jealousies, 
sectarian and otherwise, come in and 
hinder him, and it is a long, weary way 
to the well-filled church, the thriving 
Sunday-school, and the snug parsonage. 

Often he fares like the early farmer. 
The pioneer preacher is seldom seen in 
the pretty church, but a man of a later 



BREAKING NEW GROUND. 26/ 

generation. The old man is alive yet, 
and perhaps his good wife ; but they are 
plain folks, and belong to another day. 
Sometimes they look back with regret to 
the very hardships they endured, now 
transfigured and glorified through the 
mists of years. Should the reader think 
the picture too dark, here are two con- 
densed illustrations from Dr. Leach's 
*' History of Grand Traverse Region." 
Remember, this was only a few years 
ago, and where to-day seventy thousand 
people dwell, on improved farms, and in 
villages alive with business, having all 
the comforts, and not a few of the luxu- 
ries, of civilized life. 

In those early days, Mr. Limblin, find- 
ing he had but one bushel and a half of 
corn left, and one dollar and a half in 
money, prevailed on a Mr. Clark to take 
both corn and money to Traverse City, 
thirty miles away, and get groceries with 
the money, and have the corn ground, 
Mr. Clark to have half for the work. One 
ox was all the beast of burden they had. 



268 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

Mr. Clark started with the corn on the 
back of the ox ; about half-way he ex- 
changed for a pony and sled for the rest 
of the road, leaving the ox with the 
Indians till his return. On his way back, 
a fierce snowstorm hid the shores of the 
bay from view. Presently he came to a 
wide crack in the ice ; his pony, being 
urged, made a spring, but only got his 
fore hoofs on the other side. Mr. Clark 
sprang over and grasped the pony's ears, 
but, as he pulled, his feet slipped, and 
down he came. His cries brought the 
Indians, who rescued him and the pony. 
Exhausted, he crawled back to their camp. 
But, alas ! the corn-meal and groceries 
were at the bottom of the bay. A sad 
scene it was to see his poor wife's tears 
on his arrival home. 

Rev. Peter Daugherty, now of Wis- 
consin, was the first missionary in these 
parts. He once missed his way; and 
night coming on, he saw that he must 
sleep in the woods. The air was chill. 
Not darine to build a fire for fear of the 



BREAKING NEW GROUND. 269 

damage it might do to the dry woods, 
he cast about for a shelter. Spying two 
headless barrels on the beach, with much 
trouble he crawled into them, drawing 
them as close together as he could, and 
so passed the night. He got up very 
early and finished his journey. But do 
we have such places yet ? and does the 
missionary still have to expose himself? 
Yes, friends, there are scores of such 
places in every frontier State and Ter- 
ritory; and strong men are needed more 
than ever to break up new ground, and 
cause the desert and solitary places to 
be glad and blossom as the rose. Send 
us such men ! 



2/0 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

XXVIII. 

SOWING THE SEED. 

The land is bound to grow its crop. 
The more the land has been enriched, 
the greater will be that crop, of useful 
grain or rank weeds. And the only way 
to keep the weeds from gaining the vic- 
tory is by sowing good seed and pulling 
the weeds. A friend in Detroit once 
called my attention to the luxuriant weeds 
in a fenced lot we were walking by. In 
the vacant lot close by, the weeds were 
stunted. In the fenced lot a market gar- 
dener once lived. He had enriched the 
soil. 

Our country is to have a rank growth 
of something. Rich in the blood of 
many nationalities, with freedom well- 
nigh to license, what will the harvest 
be if left without spiritual husbandry ? 
Dr. Mulhall's " Dictionary of Statistics " 



SOWING THE SEED. 2/1 

tells US how the crop looks now. The 
ratio of murders to each million inhabi- 
tants has stood as follows in the coun- 
tries named: England, 711 ; Ireland, 883; 
France, 796 ; Germany, '^^^'] ; and the 
United States, 2,460. Only Italy and 
Spain exceed us. Do -we wonder why 
the foreigner is worse here than at 
home ? The answer is easy. He has 
left the restraints of a watchful govern- 
ment; our liberty is for him license. On 
the frontier he is exposed to the worst 
influences, and for years has no religious 
instruction nor even example. Is it 
strange that death reaps such a harvest ? 
The sowers go forth to sow. In due 
time that seed ripens to the harvest. 

The Police Gazette is sowing draeon's 
teeth most diligently. The log shanties 
of the lumbermen are often papered with 
them. Nice primers these for "young 
America " ! Sober Maine sends streams 
of polluted literature out here, with cheap 
chromo attachments, and the Sunday- 
school lesson in them for an opiate. 



2/2 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

The infidel lecturer Is sowing his seed on 
the fruitful soil of runaway guilt. The 
callow scientist Is dropping seed long 
since dropped in another way by real 
scientists. The whole country is sown 
with newspapers of all grardes, and the 
crop is coming up. What shall the har- 
vest be ? 

"Be not deceived, whatsoever a nation 
soweth, that shall it also reap." 

In a very large number of new set- 
tlements all the above agencies are In 
active operation before the missionary 
arrives ; and, oh, what a field he finds ! 
The farmer on the new farm cannot use 
the drill and improved implements for 
the uneven places and stumps, but 
must needs sow by hand, and sometimes 
between the log piles, a little here and 
a little there, and then, between times, 
spend his strength underbrushlng. 

So the missionary starts without a 
church building, choir, organ, or even 
a membership, his pulpit a box in a 
vacant store, or In a schoolhouse or rail- 



SOJV/XG THE SEED. 2/3 

way depot, or some rude log house of 
the settler ; his audience is gathered from 
the four corners of the earth — represen- 
tatives of a dozen sects, backsliders in 
abundance, and those who have run away 
from the light of civilized life. Many 
anion or the latter have broken their mar- 
riage vows, and are now living in unlaw- 
ful wedlock. 

I remember -once preaching on this 
evil to an audience of less than twenty, 
and was surprised at the close of the 
meeting to hear a woman say, " Did you 

know you gave Mrs. an awful crack 

on the knuckles to-day ? " 

I said, -No!" 

" Well, ye did, ye know." 

Mentioning the circumstance with sur- 
prise to another, I received for an answer, 
"Well, she needn't say nothin' ; she's in 
the same boat herself ! " 

Depressed in spirits, I told my troubles 
to a good lady who I knew was " one 
of the salt of the earth," and noticing a 
smile come over her face, I asked her 



274 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

what she was smihng at. She rephed, 
" The third was as bad as the other 
two ! " 

Just here Is one of the greatest hin- 
drances the missionary has to contend 
with. I am not sure but it rivals the 
saloon. One missionary I visited told me 
that in one little hamlet, on his field, there 
was not a single family living in lawful 
wedlock. It is next to impossible to do 
anything with the parents in such cases. 
But there is one briorht side to this dark 

o 

picture. Almost without exception, they 
like to have their children attend the 
Sabbath-school. Here is prolific soil in 
which to sow good seed, and we cannot 
commence too soon. 

We are livlne in rushing times. I 
have just read in a paper that one town 
in Ontonagon County, one year and a 
half old, has three thousand inhabitants, 
forty-five saloons, twelve hotels, two 
papers, forty-eight stores, two opera 
houses, and an electric plant ! With vil- 
lages springing up in every county, and 



SOJV/JVG THE SEED. 275 

the immense onflowlng tide from foreio-n 
shores, the lone missionary on the frontier 
ofttimes would despair, but for the prom- 
ise of the Master, the miracles of the past, 
and the joy of hope's bright harvest in the 
future. And so, "going forth weeping, 
bearing precious seed," he sows beside all 
waters, with full expectations that " He 
shall come again rejoicing, bringing His 
sheaves with Him." 

That the reader may have an idea of the 
vastness of the field, and the distances 
between the workers, I will jot down a 
few facts. In 1887 there were thirty 
Congregational churches in the three con- 
ferences of Grand Traverse, Cheboygan, 
and Chippewa and Mackinac. These con- 
ferences had an average width of sixty 
miles, and stretch from Sherman, in the 
south of Grand Traverse Conference, for 
a hundred and fifty-eight miles, as the 
bird flies, to Sugar Island, in the north 
of Chippewa and Mackinac Conference. 
No one can say we were crowded. 
My nearest neighbor was sixteen miles 



2/6 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

away, the next thirty, and the next forty ; 
and, unless a change has come very lately, 
this is the only self-supporting church in 
the three conferences — and that because 
it was settled thirty years prior to many 
of the other churches. Ten years ago 
there were hundreds of miles of unbroken 
forests where to-day are crowded sum- 
mer resorts and busy villages, filled with 
representatives of the most diverse nation- 
alities under the sun. I have preached 
to a eood-sized audience with not a sin- 
gle person in it that was born in the 
United States. And the cry is, Still they 
come. Now send on your harvesters ! 



HARVEST HOMEr 2 7/ 



XXIX. 



** HARVEST HOME 



»> 



After all the hopes and fears and toil of 
the summer, the farmer's most beautiful 
sight is to see the last great load safe in 
the barn, the stock fattening on the rich, 
sweet aftermath, the golden fruit in the 
orchard, and the big, red, harvest moon 
smiling over all. This is a frequent sight, 
despite poor crops and bad weather. The 
successful farmer does not rely on one, 
but a variety of crops. Then, if the sea- 
son is bad for corn, it will be good for 
oats or wheat. Some crop will repay 
his labor. 

Here is a hint for the home missionary 
who goes forth to sow spiritual seed. If 
he expects to get a crop of Congrega- 
tionalists, he will often lament over poor 
returns. Often the missionary finds him- 
self in a miscellaneous gathering, like that 



2/8 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

of Pentecost in its variety, and no mere 
"ism" will crystallize them. One is of 
Paul, another of Apollos or Cephas, and 
he must '' determine not to know any- 
thing among them save Christ and him 
crucified." He must drop minor points, 
and adopt that plan on which all can 
agree. 

Here is a bit of experience. In a com- 
munity of seven hundred souls, the fol- 
lowing denominations were represented : 
Baptists, three kinds ; Presbyterians, two 
kinds ; Methodists, four kinds ; Christians, 
" Church of God," Episcopalians, Roman 
Catholics, Seventh-day Adventists, Luther- 
ans of all branches, Quakers, and Con- 
gregationalists. One day I found three 
married women making ready to keep 
house in what had been a large store, the 
only vacant place in which to live ; their 
husbands were working and living in 
camp. I said, "I am glad to see you. I 
suppose you are all Christians ? " 

To my surprise, they all cheerfully re- 
sponded, '' Yes." 



''HARVEST home:' 2/9 

'' Well, that is good news," I said. 
" And to what church do you belong ? " 

'' Church of God," was their answer. 

" Good ; so do I. Have you brought 
ybur letters ? " 

" No." 

" But do you really belong to the 
'Church of God'?" said one. "Well, I 
am elad to think we should find a ' Church 
of God ' minister way up here ! " 

This she said addressing the other 
women. 

'' Oh, well," said one, '' he means that 
every church is a church of God ! " 

'' Oh ! " was the answer, with a shade of 
disappointment on her face. 

" Well, well," I said, " is not that true ?" 

'' Y-a-as ; but it is not like ourn." 

"• What do you believe different from 
me ? " 

" Well, we believe in feet-washing for 
one thing, and in immersion." 

'' Oh, well, I think Christians should 
wash their feet too." 

" Now, Elder, that ain't right to be 



280 MINUTE-MAN ON THE ERONTIER. 

making fun of Scrlpter ; for Christ told 
his disciples to wash one another's feet, 
and said, ' Happy are ye if ye do these 
things.' " 

I explained what I thought was the 
meaning of the lesson, but she shook her 
head. 

I said, " Are you happy?" 
'' Not very. I feel lonesome here." 
*' But is not Christ here too ? " 
'' Oh, yes ; but it is not home." 
'' Well, I am glad you belong to Christ, 
and hope you will unite with us in fight- 
ing the common foe. Will you come to 
church, and bring the children to our Sab- 
bath-school ? " 

" Well, we shall do that." 
As I was leaving one of them said, 
*' There is a new-comer across the street. 
She belongs to some church outside T By 
''outside" she meant the old, settled parts. 
" You better call on her." 

I did so, and said that I was the home 
missionary. I asked her how she liked 
her new home ? 



''HARVEST HOMEr 28 1 

*' Not much. It is a dreadfully wicked 
place." 

'' Yes, that is true ; and I hope you will 
lend a hand in the good work. You are 
a Christian, I believe ? " 

'' Yes ; but I don't belong to your 
church." 

"What church are you now a member 
of?" 

"Well, there is only one of my kind in 
the State that I know of." 

"You must feel lonesome at times; but 
in what do you differ from us ? " 

"Well, we believe in being immersed 
three times in succession, face downw^ards. 
I intend dolnor what I can." 

After eivinor her a cordial invitation to 
attend the church, I left the good woman, 
saying I hoped I could depend on her 
beinor at church. But, alas ! trade became 
so brisk that the good sister had to work 
Sundays. She felt very sorry, she said, 
but it did seem as if it was impossible to 
live a Christian life in such a wicked place ; 
and she had concluded not to eive her 



282 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

letter to the church until she could get 
into a better community, where she would 
not have to work Sundays. I told her 
I was surprised that one who had been 
so thoroughly cleansed should have fallen 
away so quickly. 

"Yes ; but it is such a wicked place." 

" I know ; but you have only to be just 
a small Christian here to pass for a first- 
class saint! " 

She smiled sadly, and said she guessed 
she would wait. 

A man that must have a " New England 
element " to work in will feel depressed 
in such a field. But if, like Wesley, his 
field is the world, or, like Paul, he can 
say to the people, '' called to be saints," 
then he can thrust in the sickle and 
begin harvesting. We must not only sow 
beside all waters, but reap too. Do not 
harvest the weeds and the darnel, nor 
reject the barley because it is not wheat. 
Often in the new settlements there are 
enough Christians to form the nucleus of 
one church ; whereas, if we wait to have a 



''HARVEST HOME." 283 

church for each sect, it means waste of 
money and waste of men. 

In one small town of less than three 
hundred people, where there were many 
denominations represented, the company 
that owned nearly all the land gave a lot 
and the lumber for a church. Most of 
the Christians united, and a minister was 
secured. Some, however, would not join 
with their brethren, but waited on the 
superintendent to get a lot for themselves. 
He said, " Yes, we will give you all a lot 
and help you build. Just as soon as this 
church becomes self-supporting we will 
give the next strongest a lot, and so on 
to the end." 

This is level-headed Christian business. 
If we want to reap the harvest, we must 
" receive him that is weak in the faith." 
Hidden away in trunks are hundreds of 
church letters that should be coaxed out. 
Faithful preaching, teaching, and visiting, 
will bring a glorious '' Harvest Home." 
A goodly sight it is to see, under one 
roof, all these different branches of the 



284 MINUTE-MAN ON THE ER ON TIER. 

Lord's army worshipping the same Master, 
rejoicing in the same hope, and reaHzing 
in a small degree that there is neither 
Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, male nor 
female, but that all are one in Christ 
Jesus. 



INJEANA'Y VS. HEAVEN. 285 

XXX. 

INJEANNY VS. HEAVEN. 

The title to this chapter bears about the 
same relation to its contents as the name 
of one sermon does to the other twenty 
in a given volume. I gave it this title 
because it must have some heading ; 
everything has a heading. Graves have 
headstones. 

No greater variety of character exists 
on the frontier than elsewhere, but pecu- 
liar cases come to the surface oftener. 
Those women livinof in the woods, who be- 
longed to the '' Church of God," are good 
illustrations. They had some peculiar 
ideas about the Scriptures, but it was much 
more refreshing to the missionary to find 
-peculiar views than none at all. I often 
introduced myself to them with a text of 
Scripture, and tried hard to induce them 
to move into the next village for their 



286 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

children's sake. It was a much better 
place morally, although but a mile distant. 
But the influence of an organized church, 
with a good building and Sunday-school, 
made a greater difference than the distance 
would seem to warrant. One day, as I 
was passing their home, I shouted out, 
'' Up, get you out of this place ; for the 
Lord will destroy this city ! " The next 
day I was off on my way to the other side 
of the State. As my journey well illus- 
trates the difficulties of travel in a new 
country, I will describe it. 

At my first change of cars, I found that 
my train was delayed by a fire along the 
track, so that I could not make my next 
connection with a cross-country train. 
This troubled me, as it was Friday, and 
the young minister whom I was about to 
visit was doing manual work on his church 
building, and would probably be ill-pre- 
pared to preach himself. I telegraphed 
him, and was just turning away when my 
eye caught sight of a map, and I noticed 
that the road I was on and the road he 



INJEANNY VS. HEAVEN. 28/ 

was on, although a hundred miles apart 

where I was then, gradually approached 

until within thirteen miles of each other, 

one hundred miles north. Rememberlne 

<_> 

that a stage crossed at this point, I started 
on the late train, which, like a human be- 
ing, seldom makes up for lost time, and 
was dropped into the pitch darkness about 
eleven p.m. The red lights of the train 
were soon lost in the black forest ; I felt 
like Goldsmith's last man. 

Two or three little lights twinkled from 
some log cabins. A small boy, with a 
dilapidated mail-bag and a dirty lantern, 
stood near me. I asked him if there was 
a hotel in town. 

He said, '' Yep.'' 

Would he guide me to it ? 

''Yep." 

I next inquired whether the stage made 
connections with the train on the other 
road. 

*' Wal, yes, it gineraley does." 

" Why, does it not to-morrow ? " 

" Guess not." 



288 MIXUTE-MAN OK THE ER ON TIER. 

''Why?" 

'' Cos' of the ternado." 

" Tornado ?" 

*' Yes ; didn't ye know we had a 
ternado ? " 

" No." 

'' Well, we did, ye know ; tore the trees 
up hullsale, and just played Ned. Rain 
cum down like suds." 

" Well, can I get a buggy or wagon ? " 

"Guess not; both out in the woods; 
can't git home." 

I felt sick at hearing this ; for how to 
get across with two grips filled with books, 
theological books too, troubled me. I 
slept little. My room was bare ; the rain 
pattering on the roof, the mosquitoes 
inside, and my own thoughts, routed 
me out early Saturday morning. I was 
pleased to find that the man had re- 
turned with the waofon, and after much 
persuasion, I engaged him for five dol- 
lars to take me across. 

We started off with an axe. The old 
settlers laughed at our attempt, but we 



INJEANNY VS. HEAVEN. 289 

were young. Over the fallen trees we 
went bumping along ; but, alas, we tried 
too big a maple, and out came the reach- 
pole and left us balanced on the tree. 
After a tiring walk through the " shin- 
tangles " — that is, ground hemlock — we 
reached the road, and mounted bareback. 
We met some commercial travellers cut- 
ting their way through, with a settler's help, 
passed a horse and buggy (minus a driver), 
with a bottle of whiskey in the bottom. 
We then had the good fortune to borrow 
a single wagon of a minister, who lived 
near on a farm. Our horses had to walk 
in the water by the edge of the lake, and 
the leeches fastened on them by the 
dozen. Finally we met the stage, and 
knew our way was clear. We were 
drenched with the rain, but it was clear- 
ing, and so we cheered up. 

I asked the stao^e-driver whether I could 
catch the train. 

He said, "Well, if ye drive, ye can." 
The emphasis he put into the drive 
made us whip up. Presently the village 



290 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

could be seen, a half-mile away. The 
engine was on the turntable. How fast it 
went around ! I was getting nervous. I 
asked the man to get my grips out, while 
I got my ticket ; and rushing into the 
office, I snapped out, "Ticket for ! " 

The man turned his head with a jerk, 
and stared at me so intently that I thought 
something was wrong. So I said, "What 
time does the train start ? " 

" In about an hour." 

You could have knocked me over w^th 
a feather. I felt like Sir Francis Drake, 
when his vessel seemed to be going over 
in the Thames. "What! have I sailed 
the ocean," said he, " to be drowned in a 
ditch?" So, I thought, "Have I come 
a hundred miles out of my w^ay, to miss 
the train ? " 

I boarded the cars, cleaned my valises, 
and found the color running from my 
book-covers. My boots were like brown 
paper, so sodden were they. I dried my- 
self by the stove ; but my troubles were not 
over. The train-boy called out the station 



INJEANNY VS. HEAVEN. 29 1 

at the water-tank. The rain was pouring 
down ; I was in for it again ; so I walked 
down between the freight cars, went to 
the hotel and dried myself again, and, after 
dancing around the room on one foot to get 
my boots on, I started off to find my man. 
He was out of town ! Expected home 
with a funeral soon. I was foolish enough 
to make myself known as soon as he got 
off the cars, and he coaxed me into tak- 
inor charge of the funeral. Then for the 
third time I was soaked, as we stood in 
the new cemetery, while a hymn of six 
verses was rendered. But what flattened 
me worse than all was that the young 
man had not received my second tele- 
gram, which I sent to relieve his sup- 
posed excited feelings, and had not been 
troubled in the least, but was going to 
make Fred. Robertson (" who being dead 
yet speaketh ") do duty for him. Tired 
out, I flung myself on a bed, and slept 
in spite of — well never mind what. I 
had to change quarters next night, for 
I was not so sleepy. 



292 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

I received a letter from the student 

who had taken my charge, saying, '' 

is burnt to the ground, and all north of 
the railway." In an instant there flashed 
on my mind the words of the woman : 
" Up, get you out," etc. The same words 
came home to the women as they saw 
their homes going up in smoke. 

'' What did the elder say ? " said they 
to one another. 

The excitement of the fire brought on 
brain fever in the case of the youngest 
child. 

On my return, while trying to comfort 
the little one (who we thought was dy- 
ing), and telling her about heaven, she 
cried out in her feebleness, " I don't 
want to go to heaven ! I want to go 
to Injeanny." 

And, sure enough, she got well, and 
did go to " Injeanny." 



LA TEST FRONTIER — OKLAHOMA. 293 

XXXI 

THE LATEST FRONTIER OKLAHOMA. 

Collier, in his " Great Events of 
History," tells of a million warriors who, 
leaving their wives and children, crossed 
the Danube, and swore allegiance to 
Rome. Since that time a great many 
immigrations have taken place, but none 
on so large a scale. But, large or small, 
the settlements of the Indian Territory, 
now called Oklahoma, are the most 
unique. 

It would have been hard to have de- 
vised a worse way to open a new country. 
Thousands of people — strong, weak, the 
poor settler, the speculator, the gambler 
— were all here, man and wife, and spin- 
ster on her own responsibility. All 
waited for weeks on the border-land. At 
last the time came, and the gun was 
fired, and in confusion wild as a Co- 



294 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

manche raid, the great rush was made. 
Many sections being claimed by two and 
three parties, the occasion had its comic 
side, amid more that was tragic. Thou- 
sands went in on cattle-cars, and as 
many more filled common coaches inside 
and out, and cluno- to the cow-catcher of 
the engine. In places wire fences were 
on either side of the railway ; and men 
in trying to get through them in a hurry, 
often reached their land minus a large 
part of their clothing. 

In one case a portly woman, taking 
the tortoise plan of slow and steady, 
reached the best section, while the men 
still huno- in the fence like victims of 
a butcher-bird. It is said of one young 
woman, who made the run on horse- 
back, that reaching a town-site, her horse 
stumbled, and she was thrown violently 
to the ground and stunned. A passing 
man jumped off his horse, and sprinkled 
her face with water from his canteen ; 
and as she revived, the first thing she 
said was, "This is my lot." 



LATEST FRONTIER — OKLAHOMA. 295 

'* No, you don't," said the' man. But 
to settle it they went to law, and the 
court decided in favor of the woman, as 
she struck the ei'ound first. 

Among much that was brutal and bar- 
barous, some cases of chivalry were no- 
ticed. In one case a young woman was 
caught in a wire fence, and two young 
men went back, helped her out, and al- 
lowed her to take her choice of a section. 
One man, in his eagerness, found himself 
many miles from water. As he was driv- 
ing his stake, he noticed that his horse 
was dying ; and realizing his awful situa- 
tion, being nearly exhausted with thirst, 
he cut his horse's throat, drank the blood, 
and saved his own life. 

The work done in six years is simply 
marvellous. Imagine the prairie described 
by Loomis as the place where you could 
see day after to-morrow coming up over 
the horizon ; at times covered with flowers 
fair as the garden of the Lord, or covered 
with snow, and nothing to break the fury 
of the wind. Seventy-five thousand In- 



296 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

dians the only permanent residents in the 
morning ; at night hundreds of thousands 
of whites — villages, towns, and cities 
started, in some of them a mayor chosen, 
a board of aldermen elected, and the 
staked-out streets under police control. 
The inhabitants were under tents for a 
few weeks, while sickness of all kinds at- 
tacked them. There were rattlesnakes of 
two varieties, tarantulas, two kinds of scor- 
pions, — one, the most dangerous, a kind 
of lizard, which also stings with its tail, 
and with often deadly effect, — and centi- 
pedes that grow to six inches in length. 
One of the latter was inside a shirt 
which came home from the laundry, and 
planted his many feet on the breast of 
one of our minute-men, and caused it 
to swell so fearfully that he thought at 
one time he should die. He recovered, 
but still at times feels the effect of the 
wounds, which are as numerous as the 
feet. The pain caused is intense, and 
the parts wounded slough off. 

Now imaeine all this ; and then six 



LA TEST FRONTIER — OKLAHOMA. 297 

years after you visit this land, and find 
cities of ten thousand inhabitants, banks 
with pohshed granite pillars, — polished 
with three per cent per month interest, 
— great blocks, huge elevators, and fine 
hotels. And nowhere, even In Paris, will 
you find more style than among the well- 
to-do. And on the same streets where I 
saw all this, I also saw men picking ker- 
nels of corn out of an old cellar close by 
a second-hand store, where already the 
poor had given up and sold their furni- 
ture to eet home. 

I looked out of my hotel window one 
morning in " Old Oklahoma," and saw a 
lady walking past dressed in a lavender 
suit, a white hat with great ostrich feath- 
ers on it, by her side a gentleman as 
well groomed as any New York swell, an 
English greyhound ambled by their side, 
while in the rear were roueh men with 
the ugly stiff hats usually worn by your 
frontier rough. Storekeepers were going 
to work in their shirt-sleeves. This was 
in a town of two thousand inhabitants. 



298 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

where there were four banks, four news- 
papers, eleven churches, and only three 
saloons. 

While I was there a most brutal mur- 
der took place, — a woman shot her 
step-daughter, killing her instantly. The 
husband, the girl's father, swept the 
blood from the sidewalk, and went down 
to the jail that night and stayed with the 
woman, while a fiddler was sent down to 
cheer her. This man was her fifth hus- 
band. 

In the two weeks I was in that vicin- 
ity seven persons were killed. Three 
men had shot down some train-robbers, 
and after they were dead had filled their 
bodies with bullets. This so incensed 
the friends of the dead men that a num- 
ber of them went to the house where 
the men had fortified themselves. When 
they saw how large a force Avas against 
them, they surrendered, their wives in the 
meanwhile becro-inor the men who had 
come not to molest their husbands. But 
the women were pushed rudel)' aside, and 



LA TEST FRONTIER — OKLAHOMA. 299 

the men were carried to the hills and 
lynched. One murderer cost the Territory 
over fifteen thousand dollars. Banks 
have loaded pistols behind the wire win- 
dows, where they can be reached at a 
moment's notice. 

Still, lawlessness is not the rule ; and 
it has never been as bad as one city was 
farther north, w^here men were held up 
on the main street in broad daylight. 
Such facts may just as well be known, 
because there is a better time coming, 
and these things are but transitory. 

In the old settled parts, peach orchards 
are already bearing ; and if there is a 
moderate rainfall, and the people can get 
three good crops out of five, such is the 
richness of the soil, the people will be 
rich. But to me the western part of the 
Territory seems like an experiment as 
yet. There are many places in the same 
latitude farther north utterly deserted ; 
and empty court-houses, schools, and 
churches stand on the dry prairie as lone- 
some as Persepolis without her grandeur. 



300 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

But now let us go into " The Strip." 
("The Strip " is the Cherokee Strip, the 
last but ope opened ; the Kickapoo being 
opened this May.) It has been settled 
about eighteen months. It is May, 1895. 
We leave the train, and start across the 
prairie in a buggy with splendid horses 
that can be bought for less than forty 
dollars each. We pass beautiful little po- 
nies that you can buy for ten to twenty 
dollars. On either side we pass large 
herds of cattle and many horses. Few 
houses are in sight, as most of them are 
very small and hardly distinguishable from 
the ground, while some are under ground. 
Here and there a little log house, made 
from the "black jacks" that border the 
stream, which is often a dry ditch. The 
rivers, with banks a quarter of a mile 
apart at flood can be stepped over to- 
day. 

Fifty miles of riding bring us to a 
county town. All the county towns in 
" The Strip " were located by the Gov- 
ernment, and have large squares, or rather 



LA TEST FRONTIER — OK'LAIIOMA. 3OI 

oblongs, in which the county buildings 
• stand. It is the day before the Indians 
are paid. Here we find every one busy. 
Streets are beine graded, and a fine court- 
house in process of erection. Stores are 
doing an immense business, one reaching 
over one hundred thousand dollars a 
year ; another, larger still, being built. 
By their sides will be a peanut-stand, a 
sod store, another partly of wood and 
partly of canvas, and every conceivable 
kind of buildinor for llvlnor In or tradlno-. 
And here is a house with every modern 
convenience, up to a set of china for after- 
noon teas, and a club already formed for 
progressive euchre. 

The Indian is not a terror to the set- 
tlers, as in early days ; but he exasperates 
him, stalking by to get his money from 
the Government. He spends it like a 
child, on anything and everything to 
which he takes a notion. He lives on 
canned goods, and feasts for a time, then 
fasts until the Great Fathers send him 
more money. On the reservation, gam- 



302 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

biers fleece him ; but he does not seem 
to care, for he has a regular income and 
ail the independence of a pauper. 

It seemed very strange to look out of 
the car window, and see the tepees of the 
Indians, and on the other side of the car 
a lady in riding-habit with a gentleman 
escort — a pair who would have been in 
their place in Rotten Row. 

Now we must turn westward for a hun- 
dred miles, and in all the long ride pass 
but one wheatfield that will pay for cut- 
ting ; and that depends on rain, and must 
be cut with a header. Dire distress al- 
ready stares the settler in the face ; and 
even men, made desperate by hunger 
in Old Oklahoma, are sending their peti- 
tions to Guthrie for food. There are hun- 
dreds of families who have nothing but 
flour and milk, and some who have neither. 
When a cry goes up for help, it is soon 
followed by another, saying things are 
not so bad. This latter cry comes from 
those who hold property, and who would 
rather the people starve than that property 
should decrease. 



LA TEST FRONTIER — OKLAHOMA. 303 

I saw men who had cut wood, and 
hauled it sixteen miles, then spht it, and 
carried it twelve miles to market, and after 
their three days' work the two men had 
a load for themselves and one dollar and a 
quarter left. And one man said, " Mine 
is a case of ' root hog or die,' " and so got 
fifty cents for his load of wood he had 
brought fourteen miles ; while another 
man returned with his, after vainly offering 
it for forty cents. In one town I saw a 
horse, — a poor one, it is true, — but the 
man could not get another bid after it 
had reached one dollar and a half. 

Of course there are thousands who are 
better off; but in the case of very many 
they were at the very last degree of pov- 
erty when they went in. Many of our 
minute-men preached the first Sunday. 
They were among the men who sat on 
the cow-catcher of the engine, and made 
the run for a church-lot and to win souls. 
They preached that first Sunday in a dust- 
storm so bad that you could scarcely see 
the color of your clothes. To those who 



304 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

never saw one, these dust-storms are past 
belief. Even when the doors and win- 
dows are closed, the room seems as if it 
were in a fog ; for the fine particles of dust 
defy doors and window^s. And should a 
window be left open, you can literally use 
a shovel to get the dust off the beds. 

You may be riding along, as I was, the 
hot wind coming in puffs, the swifts glid- 
ing over the prairie by your side, the heat 
rising visibly on the horizon, when in a 
flash, a dust-storm from the north came 
tearing along, until you could not see 3^our 
pony's head at times, drifts six inches deep 
on the wheat, and your teeth chattering 
with the cold at one p.m., when at eleven 
A.M. you were nearly exhausted with the 
heat. 

Strange when you ask people whether 
It is not extremely hot in the Middle 
West, the)^ say, " Yes; but we always have 
cool nights." And, as a rule, that is so ; 
but now as I write, July 9, 1895, comes 
the news of intense heat, — thermometer a 
hundred and nine in the shade, and ninety- 



LA TES r FRON TIE R — OKLA HO MA . 3 O 5 

eight at midnight, followed by a storm 
that shot pebbles Into the very brickwork 
of the houses. 

Every man who can, has a cyclone cel- 
lar. Some are fitted up so that you could 
keep house In them. In one town where 
I went to speak, the meeting was aban- 
doned on account of a storm which was 
but moderate ; but such Is the fear of 
the twister that nearly all the people were 
In their pits. 

In the Baptist church, where they had 
a full house the nlo^ht before, I found 
one woman and two men ; and they 
were blowlnof out the lIMits. The tele- 
grams kept coming, telling of a storm 
shaking buildings, and travelling forty 
miles an hour ; but It was dissipated 
before It reached me, and I escaped. 
Yet I found a man who had lived over 
a quarter of a century In the West, and 
had never seen one. 

It Is a big country. A friend of mine 
in England wrote me that they feared for 
me as they read of our fearful cyclones. 



306 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

I was living near Boston, Mass. I wrote 
back, saying I felt bad for them in Lon- 
don when the Danube overflowed. I had 
to go over and explain it before they saw 
my joke. 

The cyclone, however, is no joke. 
Nevertheless, it performs some queer 
antics. One cyclone struck a house, and 
left nothinor but the floor and a tin cus- 
pidore. The latter stood by a stove 
which weighed several hundredweight, 
and which was smashed to atoms. 

In another house a heavy table was 
torn to pieces, while the piano-cover in 
the same room was left on the piano. 
In one house all had gone into the cel- 
lar, when they remembered the sleeping 
baby. A young girl sprang in, and got 
the baby ; and just as she stepped off, 
the house went, and she floated into the 
cellar like a piece of thistle-down. A 
school-teacher was leaving school, when 
she was thrown to the ground, and every 
bit of clothing was stripped from her, 
leaving her without a scratch. 



LA TES T FRONTIER — OK LA NOMA . 307 

Perhaps the most remarkable escape 
was a few years ago in Kansas City. 
When a young school-teacher reached 
home, her mother said, " Why did you not 
bring your young brother ? " She hast- 
ened back ; and as she reached the room 
where her brother was, she grasped him 
around the waist, and jumped out of the 
window just as the building was struck. 
She was carried two blocks, and dropped 
without injury to either of them. These 
things are hard to believe, but no one will 
be lost who does not believe them. 

But to return to our journey. We had 
three churches to dedicate in three days, 
two on one day. And here let me say, 
a church could be organized every day in 
the year, and not trespass on any one's 
work. We could see the little building 
loom up on the horizon, appearing twice 
its size, as things do on the prairie with 
nothinof to contrast them with, for the 
houses were almost invisible. The place 
was crowded, so that the wagon -seats were 
brought in ; and a very affecting sight it 



308 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

was to see the communion-wine brought 
in a ketchup bottle. The people were 
good, but very poor, although nearly all 
owned horses, for in that country this is 
no sign of wealth. 

After a few hours' drive, we came to 
our second church. The prairie here was 
broken up by small canons, interspersed 
with streams, and was quite pretty. A 
grocery and a blacksmith-shop, the latter 
opened Tuesday and Thursday only, com- 
prised the village. A small house where 
the proprietor of the store lived, and the 
church, were all the buildings one could 
see. The people were very cordial and 
intellieent. The daughters of mine host 
were smart, handsome girls, that could do 
almost everything, — ride a wild broncho, 
and shoot a rattler's head off with a bul- 
let, and yet were modest, well-dressed, 
and good-mannered young ladies. 

I was taken down stairs cut out of the 
clay, and covered with carpet, into a room 
the sides of which were the canon. It 
looked out over the great expanse. The 











i^ !■■ :'\'^/i'',^Ak- 



LA TEST FRONTIER— OKLAHOMA. 309 

beds were lifted up so as to form walls 
around the room, and take up less space. 
After a bountiful supper, I looked at the 
church, which stood on a sightly hill. I 
wondered where the people were com- 
ing from, but was told it would be filled. 
It%vas on a Thursday night. I looked 
over the prairie ; and in all directions I 
saw dark spots in motion, that grew larger. 
I said, '' They appear as if rising from the 
ground." 

"Well," said mine host, "most of them 

are." 

By eight o'clock three hundred were 
there, most of them bringing chairs ; by 
8.30, there were four hundred; at 9 
o'clock, by actual count, five hundred peo- 
ple crowded in and around the door of 
the church. It was a sight never to be 
forgotten, to see this great company start 
off across the prairie in the full moonlight. 
I spoke to some of them, saying," Why, 
you were out at the afternoon meeting." 
— "Yes," said the man, "I should have 
come if we had to ride a cow all the way 



310 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

from Enid." This was a place thirty 
miles away. This church was built by 
the people, one man working for a dollar 
a week and his dinner, the farmers work- 
ing his farm for him while he was at the 
building. 

The church had not yet received its 
chairs, and was seated with boards laid 
across nail-kegs. 

Here our minute-man preaches in houses 
so small that the chairs had to be put out- 
side, and the people packed so thickly that 
they touched him. It ought to touch the 
Christian reader to help more. We had 
fifty miles to ride the next day, into a 
county town. We found it all alive; for 
nearly four hundred lawsuits were on the 
docket, mostly for timber stealing. 

" Poor fellows," I thought, " Uncle Sam 
ought to give you the timber for coaxing 
you here." 

However, the judge was a fine, well- 
read man, and let them off easy. Deputy- 
sheriffs by the score were stalking about. 



LA TEST FRONTIER — OKLAHOMA. 3 I I 

with their deadly revolvers sticking out 
from under their short coats. 

The best hotel was crowded, and I had 
for that night to sleep in another one. 
The house was old, and had been taken 
down and brought here from Kansas and 
rebuilt. The doors up-stairs once had 
glass in them ; rough boards covered the 
broken places. One door was made up 
entirely of old sign-boards, which made 
it appear like so many Chinese charac- 
ters, such as Pat said he could not read, 
but thought he could play It If he had 
his flute with him. 

I was ushered into a room, and re- 
quested to put the light out when I was 
through with it ; meaning I was to place it 
outside, which I did not do. But what 
a room ! The wainscoting did not reach 
the floor. Small bottles of oil, with 
feathers in them, looked awfully supiclous. 
There was no washstand or water. The 
pillow looked like a little bag of shot, 
and was as dirty as the bed-clothes. The 
door was fastened w^th a little wooden 



312 MINUTE-MAN ON THE ERONTIER. 

button, which hung precariously on a small 
nail. 

I took off my coat, and put it on again, 
and finally lay down on the bed, after 
placing something between my head and 
that pillow. 

I had to go several blocks in the morn- 
ing to find a place to wash, so dirty were 
the towels down-stairs. I was then given 
a house to myself, which consisted of 
a single room, eight by ten, or ten by 
twelve, I forget which. It was originally 
the church and parsonage. Here the 
church w^as organized, and the first wed- 
ding took place. 

A fine church, the largest and handsom- 
est in the Territory, was next door, and 
was to be dedicated the next day, which 
would be Sunday. This building had been 
brought all the way from Kansas, and the 
very foundation-stones carried with it, and 
put up in better shape than ever. Three 
times next day it was crowded, even to the 
steps outside, many coming twenty miles 
to attend. One lady came twice who lived 



six miles away, and said, " Oh, how I 
wish I could come ao^ain to-niorht! But I 
have six cows to milk, and it w^ould mean 
twelve miles to ride there and back, and 
then six miles to go home ; yet I would 
if I could. Oh ! sometimes I think I 
should die but for God and my little 
girl." 

As the people came in, I said to myself, 
" Where have I seen these ladies before, 
— pink and lemon-colored silk dresses, 
pointed buff shoes, ostrich feathers in their 
enormous hats, — oh ! I have it, in the 
daily hints from Paris." 

The men wore collars as ugly and un- 
comfortable as they could be made, which 
made them keep their chins up ; and right 
by their sides were women wdiose hats 
looked like those we see in boxes outside 
the stores, your choice for five cents ; there 
were four or five little sunburned children, 
some of w^hom were in undress uniform, 
and their fathers in homespun and blue 
jeans. 

Close by in the canons crouched a fugi- 



314 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

tive from justice. Two men started out to 
take him, but came home without their 
guns. Then a brave, cool-headed man of 
experience went, and slept in the timber 
where our desperado lay concealed, think- 
in e to catch him in the morninor before 
the robber awoke ; but while he was rub- 
bing his own sleepy eyes the words, sharp 
as a rifle report, came, " Hold up your 
hands ! " And number three came home 
minus his shootino--irons. 

Oklahoma differs in many ways from 
other frontiers. You find greater ex- 
tremes, but you also find a higher type 
intellectually. The Century and Harper s 
and the popular magazines sell faster, and 
more of them, than the Police Gazette. 

On the other hand, settled en masse as 
it has been, the church has not begun to 
reach the people except in county towns, 
where, as usual, it is too often, but not al- 
ways, overdone. In one case I found a 
man who was trying to organize with one 
member ; and in another a man actually 
built a church before a single member 



■ LA TEST FRONTIER — OKLAHOMA. 3 I 5 

of his denomination was there, and there 
were none there when I left. In some 
cases I found our minute-man an old 
soldier ; and more than once for weeks 
at a time he had to sleep in his clothes, 
and keep his rifle by his side. 

In some cases the Government had 
located a county town, and the railway 
company had chosen another site close by. 
Then the fight began. The railway at 
first ignored the Government's site, and 
ran their trains by ; built a station on their 
own site, and would have no other. Then 
the people on the Government site tore 
up the tracks, and incendiarism became so 
common that the insurance agent came and 
cancelled all the policies except the church 
and parsonage where our minute-man 
stood euard. This was done in several 
places, and the end is not yet. 

Now, to the general reader, everything 
seems in a hopeless muddle, and he is 
glad he is not living there. But remem- 
ber this. It is better than some older set- 
tlements, where men had to give eighty 



3l6 MINUTE-MAN ON THE 'FRONTIER. 

bushels of wheat for a pair of stogy boots, 
as they did In Ohio, and fight the Indian as 
well as the wolf from the door, or In Kan- 
sas forty years ago, where corn brought 
five cents a bushel, and men had to o-o a 
hundred miles to the mill. In order to 
show the hopeful side, I will give an 
illustration. 

I was to speak at a meeting In Illinois. 
My way was through Missouri, where spir- 
itual and civilized prosperity has not kept 
pace with her wealth and opportunities. I 
was entertained in a mansion built sixty 
years ago. The city, of sixteen thousand 
inhabitants, could hardly be matched in 
New England, — many fine streets, shaded 
with grand old elms ; the roads bricked 
and w^ell graded ; the houses beautiful, ar- 
tistic, and surrounded with lovely lawms ; a 
college, a ladles' seminary, and many fine 
schools and churches. 

The lady of the house said, "My mother 
crossed the mountains many times to 
Washington, to live with her husband, 
w^ho represented the State there." At 



LA TEST FRONTIER — OKLAHOMA. 3 I 7 

last she had to take two carrlaores and two 
horses, and it became too hard work, 
when her husband built the house which 
is still a beautiful home, with magnificent 
elms, planted by its original owner, shad- 
ing it. In that day the rattlesnake glided 
about the doorway, the Indians roamed 
everywhere, and the wolves actually licked 
the frostino- off the cakes that were set to 
cool on the doorstep, while the Indians 
stole the poor woman's dinner who lived 
close by. To-day a park adorns the front, 
given by the generous owner to the city ; 
and where the wolves and the Indians 
roamed, lives the daughter of Governor 
Duncan, with her husband and family, in 
one of the finest cities of its size in the 
world. Nowhere in all this wide world 
can the advance of civilization during the 
last fifty years be found on so large a 
scale as here on the American frontiers. 



3l8 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

XXXII. 

THE PIONEER WEDDING. 

As one travels over our country to-day, 
one will see as lowly homes, as acute 
poverty, and as congested a population, 
as he can find anywhere in Europe, with 
this great difference, — our people are 
filled with hope. There is a buoyancy 
about American life that is lacking in 
Europe. It is, as Emerson expressed it, 
a land of opportunity ; and this difference 
is everything to the immigrant and the 
native pioneer. And this means much to 
us. The great majority of immigrants are 
from the most thrifty of the poor. 

I have in mind now a family, who once 
lived in a large city. It took all the 
strenorth of husband and wife to make 
both ends meet ; but by dint of rigid 
economy, they saved enough to take them 
across the water in the steerage of a great 



THE PIONEER WEDDIXG. 319 

ship. This couple, with their Httle ones, 
found themselves at the end of their jour- 
ney on a homestead, but with scarcely a 
cent left. The people around them were 
very poor, some of them living the first 
winter on potatoes and salt, not having 
either bread or milk. But in some way 
they managed to live, cheered by the hope 
that any move must be upward, and in the 
near future comfort, and farther on afflu- 
ence. The same economy that saved the 
passage-money kept a little for a rainy 
day, no matter how hard the times were. 
When I became acquainted with them 
they owned a large farm, a small log house 
and stable, several cows, horses, pigs, and 
poultry. Around the house was a neat 
picket-fence, every picket being cut out 
and made with axe and jack-knife during 
the lonof winter months. The veee table 
garden was well-stocked ; but what ap- 
pealed to me most was the richness and 
the variety of the flower-garden, — roses, 
pansies, wallflowers, sweet-pease, holly- 
hocks, and mignonette. It was truly a 



320 MJNUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

feast for the eyes. The Httle house and 
the milk-room, the latter made of lillipu- 
tian logs, were dazzling white by the re- 
peated coats of whitewash. The whole 
formed a pretty picture ; and for so new a 
country it was more than a picture, — it 
was an education for every settler near 
them. 

I tried to fancy my host's feelings as he 
thought of the sharp struggle in the old 
land, and as he looked over his broad 
acres now, richer than the farmers he once 
envied as they drove in on their stout cobs 
to market. 

Near by was another home. Here, too, 
were fine gardens, and another old couple 
out of the grip of poverty, which well-nigh 
killed them in the struggle. This good 
lady was once the only white woman on 
a large island, which to-day is laid out 
in sections, has towns, villages, school- 
houses, and churches, and every farm 
occupied. The old couple had an un- 
married son left ; and he, too, was about 
to quit the parent nest, and start a home 



THE PIONEER WEDDING. 32 1 

for himself. And now I must tell about 
the wedding. 

But first a word about the climate, soil, 
and conditions, in order to understand 
what follows. The whole country had 
once been forest, the home of the Hurons, 
Chippewas, and other tribes of Indians. 
The Jesuit had roamed here, suffered, and 
often become a martyr. Some time in the 
past, either from Indian fires or careless- 
ness, the forest caught fire, and tens of 
thousands of acres of choice maples and 
birch were burnt down to the very roots. 
The soil is clay, but so charged with lime 
that you can plough while the water fol- 
lows the horses in the furrows in rivulets 
that dash agrains't^ their fetlocks. This in 
clay, as a rule, would mean utter ruin until 
frost came, and the ofround thawed a^ain. 
But not so here. As the ground becomes 
dry, it pulverizes easily under the harrow. 

This section was subject to storms that 
filled the narrow streams until they be- 
came dangerous torrents, sweeping all 
before them, and sometimes making a 



322 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

jam of logs twenty miles long. One 
spring I noticed that all the bridges were 
new, and that they had all been built some 
four feet higher than before. I was told 
that the spring freshets had swept every- 
thing before them, and had been so un- 
usually high that the change of level 
became necessary. 

It was the night before the wedding, and 
I was preaching in a little schoolhouse that 
held about twenty people. It was a very 
hot night for that latitude, and every one 
was depressed with the heat. A great 
black cloud covered the heavens, except 
an ugly streak of dirty yellow in the west. 
It was not long before the yellow glare was 
swallowed up by the night ; and then from 
out of the dense black canopy shot streaks 
of vivid lightning, forked, chained, and 
of every variety, and "long and loud the 
thunder bellowed." 

We were not long in closing that meet- 
ing. All that rode in our wagon had more 
than two miles to go. The horses were 
terrified, but to those who enjoy a thun- 



THE PIONEER WEDDING. 323 

der- Storm it was sublime. We crossed 
one bridge in the nick of time ; for it 
went thundering down as the back wheel 
bumped against the road, only just clear 
of it. 

One man was asleep in his shanty, and 
did not know of the storm until his little 
dog, tired of swimming around the room, 
climbed on the bed, and licked his face. 
The man awoke, and put his hand out of 
the clothes and felt the water. He sprang 
up and lit a lamp, and found two feet of 
water in his room. In the morning it had 
run off and taken all the bridges aoain. 

And this was the wedding morn. The 
bridegroom had been away for the ring, 
but had not returned. We were getting 
anxious for him when we saw two horses 
coming on the jump, and a wagon that 
was as often off the ground as on it, as it 
thumped along the macadamized road of 
a new country, with stones as large as a 
cocoanut, five and six feet apart ; but, as 
the settlers said, it was good to what it 
once was, and I believed it too. 



324 MINUTE-MAN ON THE FRONTIER. 

He came in splashed with mud ; but 
although he had been without sleep, vic- 
torious love shone in those light blue 
eyes, and with his fair complexion and rich 
rosy cheeks he was the personification of 
a Viking after victory. He had covered 
four times the distance on account of 
bridges carried away. 

A hasty breakfast, and off we started, 
forgetting, until we were almost there, the 
bridge which had gone down the night 
before. We turned back to find another 
bridge afioat and in pieces ; but, luckily, 
the stream had become shallow, and after 
the horses had danced a cotillon, we suc- 
ceeded in getting across. 

As we came to the farm where the fair 
young bride was waiting, we found the 
fields under water nearly to the house. I 
hardly knew how we should reach it. But 
the bridegroom and the horses had been 
there before ; and, as the water was only 
a few inches deep, we were soon at the 
house. The youngsters were all in great 
spirits. This was the first wedding in the 



THE PIONEER WEDDING. 325 

family ; and I remember how awestruck 
the children seemed when the bride came 
out, looking queenly in her white robes, 
but soon recovered themselves as they 
recognized their own sister. 

The wedding over, then came the din- 
ner. Who would have thought, as they 
passed that farm, of the world of happi- 
ness in that little log house? And the 
dinner, — a huge sirloin, which made us 
sing, " Oh, the roast beef of old Eng- 
land ! " Precious little had these people 
had in old England; but now, besides the 
mighty sirloin, there were capons, ducks, 
lamb and green pease, mint sauce, delicious 
wild strawberries, damson pie, and rasp- 
berry-wine vinegar for drink. 

Thank God for the possibilities of our 
glorious land to those who are frugal and 
industrious. 

After dinner we sang '' The Mistletoe 
Bough," ''To the West, to the West," 
'* Far, far, upon the Sea," '' Home, Sweet 
Home," and ''America," the youngsters 
singing "My Country, Tis of Thee," and 



326 MINUTE-MAN ON THE EKONT/ER. 

some of the old ones " God save die 
Queen," to the same tune. 

The young couple had the only spare 
room in the house, and the rest of us 
went up-stairs into a room that was the 
size of the house. There father and 
mother hung a sheet up, and went to bed. 
Some grain- sacks made the next par- 
tition ; and a young student and myself 
took the next bed. Golden seed-corn 
hung over my head from the rafters ; oats, 
pease, and wheat w^ere in bins on either 
side of the bed. 

To-day that one family has become 
many families. The old people go to church 
in a covered buggy. The youngest are on 
the home farm, and live with the parents, 
and lovingly tend those two brave hearts 
who now sit content in their o-olden aee, 
waiting for the call to that better land, 
where the Elder Brother has prepared a 
mansion for them and a marriage supper, 
with everlasting joy. 



